Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1921-02-03
". AEEINITY.

The girl suffered atrociously at first.
But nobody knew; or Philip Fosdick
alone suspected something of what she
was going through. He could not
know all, for even to him she said lit
tie Or nothing, and went sweetly
through her days with a high head
and eyes of lying calm. But he was
sick with sympathy for her and so
in some measure quick with intuition.
He helped her more than she knew,
indeed, for he contrived to devote to
her more time than a physician had
any right to, with so many patients
leaning heavily on him for comfort.
And though he refused to expert
ment with obvious forms of hypnotism
such as mesmeric gestures and the in
duced trance, he worked insidiously
upon her by suggestion, not SO much
at the expense Of her spiritual inde-
pendence as to its re-establishment
and invigoration. 1t was never, you
must, for it is my will" but always,
"You can If you will''-though far
more subtly. =.
Thus gradually self-confidence was
built up in her anew, she began to
perceive the truth. like light dim at
the far end of tunnel, that nothing
mundane transcends the power of the
informed, self-regulated and applied
will, that not even the mortal ache
Of longing can withstand it. So vague
ly she began to apprehend a coming
time when, instead of flying from her
sorrow, it might be to a state more
unhappy yet, she would be able to face
it, even to OUTAGE it unafraid, its
master and her own.
However, that was only toward the
Meanwhile she was faithful to her
word, faithfully regulated her life in
accordance with the scheme suggested
by Fosdick. She started a portrait of
Ada Meyer and worked at it steadily
every morning, and IN amazingly few
sittings managed to make the painted
canvas body forth the impish charm
of that lady, her irresistible gay i'm
pudence. This in spite of the fact
that Ada posed poorly and pervaded
the studio with an atmosphere of in
fectious responsibility that was most
demoralizing to a seriouS-minded
artist-and did Priscilla no end of
good.
In the afternoon she labored more
soberly but no less successfully upon
composition employing two profess
sional models, a mother and daughter
painting famously well, with a de-
cision new in her work, with a dash
ing technique whose secrets she had
newly surprised and whose manipula-
ton proved an abiding joy.
In between there were luncheons at
AvignOn, DePs, the Ritz, with the
women of her world, and others with
professional workers like herself in
dingy, amusing little holes of restau-
rants with which that part of Green
wich Village Immediately adjacent to
her studio was riddled. And after the
light failed there were teas, motoring
and bridge parties, dinner, the theater,
Alike to work and to play she gave
herself without reserve, entering with
unwOnted animation (though nobody
thought it feverish) into whatever di-
version the hour offered. And if at
times there was an undernote of sad
ness in her laughter, shadowed visit
fulnesS in her eyes, WEAKNESS in her
gesture, she was the first to notice
and swift to dissemble. So that none
remarked any change in her, more
than an access of loveliness and
charm at once elusive and insistent,
and she was more than ever sought
after, importuned, courted, wooed. A
dozen conquests were added to her
score in that too brief lull. But she
seemed altogether unaware of them,
save as friends, and moved sedately
among them, adorably pretty, tantaliz-
ingly desirable, exasperatingly de-
tached. In those days she liked all
men and loved none none but
one
Not Philip Fosdick.
With herself she was honest and
unpretending: If Mario was never for
her, she was for no one else.
She was patient in confidence of ulH-
mate emancipation. Already she had
gained much. The question of her
sanity no longer harassed her. More {:
she had ceased to dream of Leonora.
Or rather, she no longer remembered
what she dreamed. She wakened every
morning from a night whose dream
content was blank-if she had dream
ed at all. She was far from satisfied,
however, that she had ceased to dream.
1t seemed to her that she had ceased
merely to remember. For in spite of
the cessation of her dreaming the
sense of the liaison persisted; never
had she felt more near to Leonora,
more intimately sharer in her psychic
life.
Now and again there would come
without warning, without any encour-
agement of conscious wish or thought,
a feeling Of identity with that other,
of understanding, of personal partici-
patton in Leonora's happiness, that
brought strange exaltation of spirit,
paradoxically akin to that happiness
which life refused her. And at such
times she would experience indefinite,
teasing glimpses into Leonora's pres
ent circumstances-glimpses no sooner
granted than snatched away, of a life
half known, half foreign, like stir of
shadow shapes in the depths Of the
dark mirror of her unconscious mind.
CTO BE CONTINUED)