The Washington herald., 1922-09-04
The Beautiful
And Damned
By p. Scott Fitzgerald.
continued from Yesterday.

uae seoN
Gloria! Gloriar'
But she had reached the kitchen
now. passed out through the door
way into the night. A hundred
drops startled by a flare Of wind
from q dripping tree, scattered on
her and she pressed them gladly to
her face with hot hands.
"Gloriai Gloria!"
The voice was infinitely remote.
mufflsd and made plaintive by the
walls she had just left. She rounded
the house and started down the front
Path toward the road. almost ex-
ultant as she turned into 1t, and
followed the carpet of short grass
alongside. moving with caution in
the intense darkness.
''Gloria!'
She broke into a run, stumbled
over the segment of branch
twisted of by the wind. The voice
was outside the house now. An
thony. finding the bedroom deserted.
had come onto the porch. But this
thing was driving her forward; 1t
was back there with Anthony. and
she must go ON in her flight under
this dim and oppressive heaven.
forcing herself through the silence
ahead as though II were a tangible
barrier before her.
She had gone some distance along
the barely discernible road. prob
ably half a mile. passed a single de-
serted barn that loomed up, black
and foreboding. the only building
of any sort between the gray house
and Marietta: then she turned tho
fork. where the road entered the
wood and ran between two high
walls of leaves and branches that
nearly touched overhead. She no.
ticed suddenly a thin. longitudinal
gleam of silver upon the road be-
fore her. like a bright sword half
embedded in the mud. As she came
closer she gave a little cry of salts
faction-it was a wagon-rut full
Of water. and glancing heavenward
she saw a light rift of sky and knew
that the moon was out.
"Gloriar'
She started violently Anthony
was not two hundred feet behind
her.
Gloria, wait for me-"
She shut her lips tightly to keep
from screaming. and increased her
gait. Before she had gone another
hundred yards the woods disap-
peared. rolling back like a dark
stocking from the leg of the road.
Three minutes walk ahead of her.
suspended in the now high and
limitless air, she saw a thin inter-
lacing of attenuated CLEANS and
glitters, centered in a regular un-
dulation on some one invisible
point. Abruptly she knew where
she would go. That was the great
cascade of wires that rose high over
the river. like the legs of a gigantic
spider whose eye was the little
green light in the switch-house. and
ran with the railroad bridge in the
direction of the station. The sta
tion, There would be the train to
take her away.
Gloria. it's me, It's Anthony,
Gloria, won't try to stop you! For
Gods sake. where are. your
She made no answer but began
to run. keeping on the high side
of the road and Ieaping the gleam-
ing puddles-dimension pools of
thin. unsubstantial gold. Turning
sharply to the left, she followed
a narrow wagon road. serving to
avoid a dark body on the ground.
She looked up as an owl hooted
mournfulfy from a solitary tree.
Just ahead of her she could see the
trestle that led to the railroad
bridge and the steps mounting up
to 1t. The station lay across the
river.
Another sound startled her. the
melancholy siren of an approach
ing train, and almost simultaneous
ly a repeated call, thin now and
far away.
Gloria! Gloriar'
Anthony must have followed the
main road. She laughed with a sort
of malicious cunning at having
eluded him: she could spare the
time to wait until the train went by.
The siren roared again, closer at
hand. and then. with no anticipatory
roar and clamor. a dark and sinuous
body curved into view against the
shadows far down the high-banked
m daCAs anu Win no SOunQ DuL Lne
rush Of the cleft wind and the
clock-like tick of the rails, moved
toward the bridget was an cleo
trio train Above the engine two
vivid blurs of blue light formed in
cessantly q radiant cracking bar
between them. which. like a splut-
tering flame in a lamp beside q
corpse lit for an instant the sue
cessive rows of trees and caused
Gloria to draw back instinctiveiy to
the far side of the road. The light
was tepid-the temperature of warm
blood. The clicking blended
suddenly with itself in a rush of
even sound. and then. elongatins in
sombre elasticity. the thing roared
blindly by her and Numbered onto
the bridge, racing the lurid shaft
Of nre IL cast into the solemn river
alongside Then It contracted swift
ly. sucking In Its sound until Il
left only . reverberant echo. which
died upon the farther bank.
Silence crept down again over the
wet country; the faint dripping re-
sumed- and suddenly great shower
Of drops tumbied upon Gloria, stir
ring her out Of the trance-like
torpor which the passage Of the
train had wrought. She ran swiftly
down . descending level to the bank
and began climbing the iron stair
way to the bridge. remembering
that II was something she had al
ways wanted to do, and that she
would have the added excitement
of traversing the yard-wide plank
that ran beside the tracks over the
river.