The Washington times., 1919-05-17
CHAPTER XVII.
Erom -Four to EfHe.

From Four to Five.
The Princess Mistchenka and
Rue CareW had retired to their
respective rooms for that hour be-
tween. four and hve in the after
noon. which the average woman de-
votes to cat-naps or to that aimles8
feminine fussing which must ever
remain q mystery to man.
The afternoon had turned very
warm; Neeland, in his room, lay on
the lounge in his undershirt and
trousers. having arrived so far to-
ward bathing and changing his at
tire.
No breeze stirred the lattice blinds
hanging over both open windows;
the semi-dusk of the room was
pierced here and there by slender
shafts OF sunlight which lay almost
white across the carpet and striped
the opposite wall; the rue Solefl
dor was very silent In the July
afternoon.
And Neeland lay there thinking
about all that had happsned to him
and trying to bring 1t home to him
self and make il seem plausible
and real; and could not
For even now the last ten days
of his life seemed Ikea story he
had read concerning someone else.
Nor did II seem to him that he per-
sonally had known all those people
concerned in this wild, exaggerated,
grotesQue story. Theyss too, TOOK
their places on the printed page.
appearing, lingering, disappearing.
reappearing, as chapter succeeded
chapter In a romance too obvious,
too palpably sensational to win the
confidence and credulity Of a young
man of today.
Fed to repletion on noisy contem-
porary fiction, his finer perception
bluited by the daily and raucous
yell OF the New York press, his
imagination too long overstrained
by Broadway drama and now daccid
and incapable of further response to
its leering or shrieking appeal, the
din Of twentieth-century art fell on
nerveless ears and on q brain be-
numbed and scepticaL
Too Much Learning.
And so when everything that he
had found grotesque, illogical.
labOured. obvious, and clamorousiy
redundant in literature and the
tinued to happen in real life to him
and went on happening and in
volving himself and others ali
around him in the pleasant July
sunshine of 1914, this young man,
made intellectually blase, founl
himself without sufficient capacity
to comprehend It
There was another matter with
- IL =
he lay there, his head Graded on
one elbow, watching the thin blue
spirals from his cigarette mount
straight to the ceiling, and that was
the metamorphosis of Rue Carew.
Where was the thin girl he re-
membered-with her untidy chest
nut hair and freckles, and q rathers
sweet mouth-d-essed in garments
the only mission of which was to
cover a nat chest and frail body
and limbs whose too rapid growth
had outstripped maturity?
To search for her he went back
to the beginning, where q little girl
in = pink print dress, bare-legged
and hatless, loitered along IN
ancient rail fence and looked up
shyIy at him as he warned her to
keep out of range OF the fusillade
from the bushes across the pasture.
He thought Of her again at the
noisy party in Gayfield on that
white night in winter; visual
ised the tall, shy. overgrova
girl who danced with him and
made no complaint when her slim
foot was trodden on And again he
the sleigh and the
Sleighbells clashing and tinklipg
under the moon: the light from her
doorway, and how she stood look
ing back at him: and how, on the
impulse of the moment,
he had gone back and kissed
her
At the memory an odd sensation
came over him, soaring him a little.
How on earth had he ever had the
.emerity to do such a thing to her!
And. as he thought OF this ex-
Iuisite. slender, clear-eyed young
girl who had greeted him at the
Paris terminal-this charming en-
1odiment OF all that is fresh and
sweet and fearless-in her perfect
rat and gown OF mondaine youth
md fashion, the memory of his
emerity appalled, him.
Imagine his taking an unencour-
ICED liberty now!
Nor could he dare imagine en-
from the Rue CareW
10 amazingly revealed to him
Out OF what, in heavens name,
lad this lovely girl developed? Out
u A shy. ragged bare-legged child.
launting the wild blackberry tan
;Ies in Brookhollow?
Out OF the frail. charmingly awk-
ward, pathetic, freckled millhand
n her homemade party clothes, the
ather sweet expression OF whose
mouth once led him to impudent in
discretion?
Out OF what had she been evolved
this young girl whom he had left
ust now standing beside her
,oudoir door with the Princess
,aia's arm around her waist? Out
Z the frightened, white-lipped,
habby girl who had come dragging
hAR mr1Sk-