The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-12-24

ness against her heart, and her stormy, eyes glittered with pnshed tears.
 But I do love you, Selma. I shall never leave you. I'm not that kind. I am only human being. 1 know, but I am not cad. You cast your lot with mine; and so we'll stick 1t out. As God is my judge, l believed could forget, stamp out all thought of her Haven't I fought; and what good has it done? Didn't you fight too?'
 "Well, here we are, A man cannot find real happiness anywhere on earth except in work. Go back, even if she agreed tc take me. knowing that it would be the same thing over again?'
 '-Three years were as much as I could stand. I never put my arms around her that I did not feel subtle repellance. And yet. God help me, see her face everywhere. If I open book. I see it there; if stare into Q fire, or gaze into a shadow"
 Have I not dragged you here and there across the world, as if it were something I could leave behind?"
 T understand. she whispered Three of us and none of us happy. For if she be not unhappy in love, she is in pride"
 If l had but met you firstl I am really damned. am constantly pulled two ways as by wild horses. She pulls one way, and you quite as strongly another"
 Topples and roses-color and per4 fume. Never mind. I'll go and get your coffee" And she sped from the room.
 He stared after her, struck by the anti-climax of this extraordinary scene. What third act! Instinc- lively he drew a blank sheet toward him and began to scribble.
 Then with sudden fury he crum- pied up the sheet and flung it into the waste basket. To make profit of her pain,
 but in his soul he knew that some day he would reconstruct the scene on paper. Inspiration! Even in her misery she helped him. Never mind I'll go and get your coffee"
 She talked of crystal. She was crystal, too--crystal in her love, her frankness; crystal and flame,
 These two atoms, Selma Nordstrom and Herbert Lane, were drawn to- gether by their intellects, by com munity of ideals, and later by love. E OI He dtu nON ioNC itt.
 Another eternal mystery of nature, which she has never condescended to divulge, is this. That main may love two women if he cannot find them both in one. He wants his wife and mistress under one roof, and if he cannot have them so. he builds a sec ond home. Over against this, woman wants but one man. however she may have him.
 Selma and Lane might have been supremely happy but for the fact he still loved his wife.
 Selma. knew humanity She pos sessed an almost internal intuition as to what this or that person would do under stress of emotion; and often she anticipated the effect. to her material or spiritual benefit She hated cruelty, and if she ever gave hurt it was due to the two first laws; to protect oneself, and then those one loves.
 Principally. among all humans, she knew Lane. For three years now she had studied him as she would have studied part. Indeed. she had to. He was not unstable, but he was va riant in his moods: he never broke promise, but he often avoided making one. Today he would be in the depths; tomorrow he would be riding in the clouds She sometimes grew dizzy in her effort to follow him in these plunges and flights.
 She was often conscious, too, of singular truth. that in this retire ment she was a greater aertess than she had ever been on the stage.
 Half of the time what he believed to he impulse was calculation, and what he sensed as calculation was pure impulse. She was as full of surprises as a spring morning in Madeira; sudden showers, radiant sunshine. mists, bursts of color. chill and warmth.
 No Longer of Mystery
 She understood clearly These queer animals called men! She her self was no longer a mystery to him, and more and more his wife was be- coming one. Oh. she could hold him for years: what with her-pfofound love and his exaggerated sense of loyalty, she could hold him. But al- ready the feat promised to be dif- ficult one. What should she do? How should she act? She had been think ing over these things as she lay upon the lounge.
 They had never really duarreled. Many time both had moved impet- uously toward the irruptive danger line, but their mental balance was so , tice and humor so keen and liv,ly. that instinctively both stepped k at the brink of the crisis.
 Her stage name was Lena Cagliari ]. but there was not q known drop of