The Washington herald., 1922-08-11

perversely IL a clergyman could
perform his own marriage service.
But as he took Gloria into his
arms he was conscious of a strong
reaction, The blood was moving in
his veins now. A languorous and
pleasant content settled like
weight upon him, bringing respon-
sibility and possession. He was
married.
Gloria.
So many, such mingled emotions,
that no one Of them was separable
from the others. She could have
wept for her mother, who was cry
ing quietly back there ten feet and
for the loveliness Of the June sun
light flooding In at the windows.
She was beyond all conscious per-
ceptions. Only sense. colored with
delirious wild excitement, that the
ultimately important was happen
ing-and trust. fierce and pas
sionate. burning in her like a
prayer. that in a moment she would
be forever and securely safe.
Late oneS night they arrived in
Santa Barbara, where the night
clerk at the Hotel Lacfadio refused
to admit them, on the grounds that
they were not married.
The clerk thought that Gloria
was beautiful He did not think that
anything so beautiful as Gloria
could be moral.
aeon Amore.s
That first half-year-the trip
West. the long months loiter along
the California Coast. and the gray
house near Greenwich where they
lived until late autumn made the
country dreary-those days. those
places. saw the enraptured hours
The breathless idyl OF their en-
Cagement gave way. first, to the
intense romance of the more pas
sionate relationship. The breath
less idyl left them. fed on to other
lovers: they looked around one day
and II was gone, how, they scarcely
knew. Had either of them lost the
other in the days of the idyl. the
love lost would have been ever to
the loser that dim desire without
fulfiiment which stands back of all
life. But magic must hurry on, and
the lovers remain....
The idyl passed, bearing with II
its extortion of youth. Came a day
when Gloria found that. other men
no longer bored her: came a day
when Anthony discovered that he
| could sit again late into the even
ing. talking with Dick of those tre-
mendous distractions that had once
| occupied the world. But, knowing
they had had the best of love, they
clung to what remained. Love lin
gered-by way of long conversa-
tions at night into those stark
hours when the mind thins and
sharpens and the borrowings from
dreams become the stun Of all life.
by way Of deep and intimate kind
nesses they developed toward each
other. by way of their laughing at
the same absurdities and thinking
the same things noble and the same
things sad
1t was. first of all. a time of dis
covery. The things they found In
each other were so diverse. so in
termixed and. moreover. 50 sugared
with love as to seem at the time
not so much discoveries as isolated
phenomena-to be allowed for. and
to be forgotten. Anthony found
that he was living with a girl of
tremendous nervous tension and of
the most high-handed selfishness
Gloria knew within a month that
her husband was an utter coward
toward any one of a million phan-
tasms created by his Imagination.
Her perception was intermittent.
for this cowardice sprang out, be-
came almost obscenely evident, then
faded and vanished as though it
had been only a creation of her
not those attributed to her sex
1t reused her neither to disgust nor
to a premature feeling of mother
hood. Herself almost completely
without physical fear, she was un-
able to understand. and so she
made the most of what she felt to
be his fears redeeming feature,
which was that though he was a
| coward under a shock and a coward
under strain-when his imagina-
tion was given play-he had yet a
sort OF dashing recklessness that
moved her on it's brief occasions al
most to admiration, and pride
that ususlfy steadied him when he
thought he was observed.
The trait first showed itself in
a dozen incidents of little more
a taxi-driver against fast driving,
in Chicago: his refusal to take her
to a certain tough cafe she had Az
ways wished to visit: these of course
admitted the conventional interpre-
tation-that It was of,her he had
been thinking; nevertheless, their
culminative weight disturbed her.
But something that occurred in a
San Francisco hotel, when they had
been married a week, gave the mat
ter certainty,
1t was after midnight and pitch
| dark in their room. Gloria was
dozing of and Anthony's even
breathing beside her made her sup
! pose that he was asleep. when sud
denly she saw him raise himself on
his elbow and stare at the window.
What Is It. dearest!" she mur-
INJURED.
"Nothing"-he had relaxed to his
pillow and turned toward her
nothing. my darling wife,
Don't say wife I'm your mis-
tress. ,Wife's such an ugly word.
Your permanent mistress' Is so
much more tangible and desirable.
Come into my arms" she
added In a rush of tenderness; Il
can sleep SO WELL so weIl with you
in my arms"
Coming into Gloria's arms had
quite definite meaning. It required
that ne should slide one arm under
her shoulder. lock both arms about
her, and arrange himself as nearly
as possible as a sort of three-sideo