The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-09-22
EOening Story
An Awakening.
BY WILL T. AMEs.

cretly enshrined is not the attribute
of a single sex. John Wade, in twelve
years time, had never been without
the consciousness Of Jessica Brandt
| and if ever there was an average man
| John Wade was he.
John was edging on toward forty.
| He had played out the years of his
youth and early manhood as one al
whist lays down the cards of a hand
1 which, as the saying is, plays itself.
He had worked and been moderately
| rewarded. He had loafed, whole
somely. and was sound in health. He
had made friends-and some had
gone and some had stayed. He had
always mingled-and mingled now
with his fellow creatures; and he had
his roseate moods and his gray ones,
his full, interesting days and his less
| satisfying ones, like everybody. More
over, he had felt his pulses quicken
| in the presence of more than onk
| lovely girl or brilliant woman. AHee
| he had never seen Jessica Brandt in
| all those dozen years. But she abode
| with him, and all the action in his
| film of life was suspended upon the
| dim radiance of her presence. For
| John to have permitted himself to
love would have been, he knew, a
spiritual sin against the woman in the
case, whoever she might be. He hao
notions about things. had John. The
| average man is honest.
! Yet Jessica Brandt was another
mans wife. And had been for more
! than eleven of the twelve years.
| Rich, too, and living in a world as
different from his own as well might
| be. Sometimes John laughed at him
| self. And then, once or twice. he had
| looked across the table a little won
| deringly at Ann. And after he had
| looked at Ann for a moment he would
find himself hurrying to finish his
meal and would excuse himself to
| III let r,a 10, rl,k
go away quickly. Afterward he would
wonder why he did that.
| Ann Perdue is quite the 1oveliest
creature anywhere" declared pretty
Mrs. Bascom generously. ut isn't only
that she's a raving beauty, which
500 big, so splendidly charitable and
! broad, and so clever and has such a
sense of humor. She's thirty-two, but
she looks twenty-five. I believe all the
men on earth have gone blind!"
"Oh, no; far from it" Mrs. Phelps
possessed the quietly observing type of
eyes It's a case of self-determina-
ton with Ann, I'm sure. Writing
women are often that way, you know"
''Well, she's human and a dear, and
1t isn't natural" protested Mrs. Bas-
com.
| Seven years ago, at the end of a
post graduate course, Ann Perdue had
yielded to her Stepmother's insistence
that she come home to live. That was
| the first time she and John had really
4 met, for he had only entered his aunt
| household at his mothers death. They
were excellent friends from the start.
and remained so. Perhaps a year later
| it was that Ann said to Mrs. Perdue:
| Mother, can't make John fit in with
any bachelor type. He isn't selfish,
he isn't stingy, he isn't self-depreca-
tory, he isn't welded to any fad, he
| isn't abnOruo aI1u diffidpnt-and h.
/ lors are usually one or the other. It's
interesting
| Going to make copy of him."
laughed Mrs. Perdue. II wouldn't
really. 1t wouldn't sell. It's just that
he was such a susceptible boy that he
expended himself in his salad days and
hasn't any affections left to go on.
never saw any one so terrifically in
love as he was with Jessica Brandt. I
fancy that finished him.
Jessica Brandt? OF Haredale-on-
Hudson?"
| yes. She spent one summer here
with relatives when John was twenty
! six. They had a tremendous affair
but it ended completely when she
went away"
Ann reflectively. adding after a little,
she was very beautiful think the
most beautiful girl I ever saw"
| For a while after that Ann studied
John with the clever analytical faculty
that was beginning to get her work
noticed. When she made up her mind
about him she ceased to study him
or to think about him unduly. She
| had her work, and the power of self
discipline. But they were famous
friends.
Johns work had to do with auto
mobiles and took him to the big motor
show in New York. That was where
Jessica Brandt lived-in a great house
just off Fifth avenue, in the seventies.
John had been in New York scores of
times and had always been looking
about, but he had never seen her. He
had never hoped to more than see her,
| because it had been a final farewell
when the girl. in passionate tears, told
him there was no way out of the mar
rage that her ambitious desperately
tfinanciering mother had arranged with
the son of a millionaire. But just to
see her-with those wonderful elo-
quent violet eyes like none others any
where! Even today, as he explained
the peculiar virtues of the Aireutter
Six, he was looking about.
And then he was looking squarely
into the violet eyes. For the merest
fraction of a second. Because the
Iviolet eyes, looking as squarely into
his, indicated in that brief space rec
ltemerity, cold, intolerant snobbery:
then passed him by. Come she said
to the man at her side.
She was gone. And all the fantastic,
beautiful structure of Johns idealism
! came crashing to the ground in a
jwhirlwind of revelation. Just one of
thousands" he breathed. Vain and
arrogant and hard as flint. It's all
therein her eyesi'
And so it was that John Wade came
home his own man for the first time
in twelve years. And because a golden
| folly had turned to ice in his heart.
| and because today was no longer
| blurred by the shadowy outlines of a
Hong ago, he welcomed as never be-
fore the warm, sound friendship of
| Ann Perdue, and saw as never before
the sterling loneliness of her
| 1t was matter of weeks. Then
he said to her: Ann, you are clever
and wise. Tell me. is the heart of a