Evening star., 1923-12-09

Y yE HAD almost spoken. The
words had half formed them
selves upon his lips as they
4 Il sat- speeding eastward across
the desert, in her drawing room on the
'Sunset Limited" He had not realized
that he truly loved her until that
afternoon the week before, when he
had seen her coming down the white
marble steps of the eucalyptus-lined
terrace of Tommy Burnham's marvel.
out Mediterranean" house at Santa
Barbara
Anna Borland was small. sloe-eyed,
ve-sklnned-exquisitely pretty In
subtle eastern way that lent itself to
diaphanous, floating garments and
many-hued turbans. 1t was the tur-
ban that had done it. Clifford Rand
was anything but imaginative, but
that afternoon he had felt the mystery
Of the past about him.
So he waited for her beside the lily
pool, smoking 4 cigarette at the bot
tom of the moss-grown steps. and she
had come drifting down toward him
through the lilac dusk like a Persian
princess-and all in one magic mo-
1nent II had come over him that he
adored her.
Anna had drifted down Tommy
Burnham's terrace through the lilac
dusk on several occasions toward
other young men, but nothing had
come of it. This time the husky tones
of Rand's voice, the strained look in
his eyes, had told her that something
had happened to him. Now as he sat
opposite her in the train she waited
,,Ir fo,- ft,n civ hot
would make her future secure. Why
mad he not spoken? The silence was
becoming awkward. Well. there would
he plenty of other occasions before
they reached New York! She would
make them.
What myriads of fowers," she ex-
claimed, looking through the window
purple and gold and scarlet, Like
the cleaning cohorts of Assurbanipai.
The embankment Is covered with
them"
Funny, how they grow right out
Of the sand"' he ventured, striving to
resurrect some faint recollection of who
.assurbanipal might be. you wouldn't
think they'd find enough nourishment
there
They're effective only in the mass"
are coarse, compared with cultivated
ones. Beauty needs nurture, and the
right soil, properly prepared
I sometimes think that never blows 20 red
The rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every hyaCnth the garden wears
Dropped in her lap from some once lovely head!
He listened reverently, although to
his duh mind it was not clear just
what Caesar had to do with 1t. Neither
was he satisfied that she was right
about the wild flowers.
There were harebells, for instance;
he thought them very pretty. And
lilies of the valley.
Annals taste was perfect, as any one
Eould see. Too bad he wasn't more up
TO her.
On every side stretched the golden
plain To the north the purple Sier-
ras; to the southwest the snow
crowned San Bernadinos against a
delicately pink sky. Color and sun
light everywhere! Far away across
the sea Of mesquite a single lonely
ranch house stood in the square of
brown, where some intrepid soul was
struggling to wrench a living from
the sand. What life! Yet 1t had
points. You were outdoors all the
time!
He turned and rediscovered Anna
How would you like to live there?"
he asked her.
She smiled at him through half
lowered lids:
"'With along some strip Of herbage
strown
That Just divides the desert from the sown,
of olaya apd -;,
And peace to Mahmud on bis golden throne -
you'd find it pretty rough, +
guess!" he grumbled, embarrassed.
You know the rest of it, don't
you?" she persisted, tiptoeing softly
on the trail Of opportunity.
"Of what?"
'Of what I was quoting?"
"No-what is it?"
"Fitzgerald's paraphrase of the 'Ru-
baiyat' of course"
She opened her blue emerald travel
ing case and removed a daintily
fooled little volume.
IF you're very good I'll lend you
my copy and you can go off by your
self and read the whole of itv'
He took 1t with a sinking of the
heart He loathed poetry. Would he
ever be up to her? Then she turned
gaily to the window again.
What wonderful. wonderful flow
ers! How / should like a whole
armfu1 of them"
x 4 + X
"A LONE in the. observation car Rand
finished the whole thing in twen-
~ minutes, surprised to find it such
good stuff. A negro thrust his head
inside the doorway, looked at him and
chanted:
'Ffrs' call To- dinner.'
Rand rose, thrust the book into his
pocket and stepped out upon the back
platform. Desert verbena in dense
masses swarmed up and over the en-
bankment, while golden poppies, more
aloof. filled the bitches and nearby
arroyos. Rand wished that he could
pick some of the flowers. The YER
bena would be very becoming to
Anna.
They slowed down and a brakeman
came hurrying through the car. He
raised the platform section conceal
lattern in hand. and ran on ahead.
The train stopped entirely, right in
the middle of a huge bed of verbena.
Rand stepped down onto the track
and hastily began picking. The con-
duotor and brakeman were diucuss-
Ing something up toward the engine.
Having plucked enough verbena he
lowered himself into the ditch and