Vernon Parish Democrat. (Leesville, La.) 1917-193?, 1922-03-16

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it was a mouth of secrets and Of mys-
terry, Of character, a mouth that had
known the trembling Of pain and grief,
perhaps, but a firm mouth now, and
a beautiful one.
have fancied her a bold and charming
and bOyish-loOl1ing little girl, fifteen
years ago, with that Greek chin and
that tawny name would have seen her
sexless and splendid in her early teens,
with fiat breast and an untamed eye.
And a romancer might have wondered
what paths had led her, in the superb
realization of her beautiful woman
hood, at twenty-seven, to this subor-
dinate position in the home of a self
made rich man, and this conventional
tea table on a terrace over the Hud-
son.
Nearly half-past FIVE, Nina" she
said presently. "Go and change and
brush, that's a darling You look
rather tumbled."
Nina, reaching for a marion, obedi-
emily wandered away, and Immediately
the empty chair beside Harriet was
taken by a newcomer Richard Carter
himself, the owner of all this smiling
estate, who had come up from the
little launch at the landing, had
changed hastily into white fiannels,
Harriet saw at glance, and had UNI
expectedly Joined them for tea.
"Tea, Mr.. Carter?" Harriet ven
tured.
He was watching his wife with
sort of idle interest, She had to re-
peat her invitation.
eff you please, Miss Field! Tea
sounded right, somehow, to me today.
It's been a terrible day."
Il can imagine itW Harriet's voice
was pleasantly commonplace. But the
moment had its thrill for her. This
lean, tall, tired man, with his abstract
manner, his perfunctory courtesies, his
nervous, clever hands, doomed in oddly
heroic proportions in Harriet's life.
His face was keen and somewhat
lined under a smooth crest Of slightly
graying hair; he smiled very rarely,
but there was a certain kindness in
his gray eyes, when Nina or Ward
or his wife turned to him, that Har-
riet liked.
For Harriet he had hardly a dozen
words year. He merely smiled
kindly when she thanked him for the
Christmas gift that bore his I'M
touched card; if she went to her sis
ter for day or two, he gave her only
a nod of greeting when she came back.
Now and then he asked with sharp
interest about Nina's teeth or his
mothers headache.
But Harriet had known other types
of men, and for his very silences, for
his Indifference, she had begun to ad-
mire him long ago. She had not been
born in this atmosphere of pleasure
and ease and riches she was not en-
tirely untitled to judge a man.
Isabelle was always breezily civil to
her husband; he had long ago van
ished as completely from among the
vital elements of her life as if he were
dead perhaps more than if he were
dead She thOught-if she thought
| about him at all-that he never saw
her little affairs; she supposed him
perfectly satisfied with his home and
children and club and business, and
| incidentally with his beautiful figure
head of a wife. They had quarreled
distressingly, several years ago, when
he had bored her with references TO
her duty" and her influence over
Nina, and her obligations to her true
self. But that had all stopped long
since, and now Isabelle was free to
sleep late, to dress at leisure, to make
what engagements she pleased, to see
the persons who interested her Rich
ard never interfered; never was there
more perfectly discreet and gener-
Gus husband. Half the women Isabelle
knew were attempting to live exactly
as she did, to cultivate "suitors," and
drift about in an atmosphere of new
gowns and adulation and orchids and
softly lighted drawing rooms, and in
cessant playing with fire; it was the
accepted thing, in Isabelle's circle,
and that she was more successful in
it than other women was not at all
to her discredit.