Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-03-20
Her DsfauItina Lover


ignores the Rover.
Her DsfauItins Lover
The new man (who was from her
own country had gone back to
Persia, quietly announcing that he
would wait. She'd told him how
remained memories and futile self
catechism-"Why couldn't l keep
Basil? What happened? What had
she for him that took him away
from me: Did he ever really care
for me, or was it, was it all on my
side? II ne had married me at once,
wouldn't it have been all right? l
shall never know, but what did hap
pen?"
The thing all but destroyed her.
1t blighted thousand girlish gay
cites and softnesses of her character
even while her world considered
that Mauve, such a sensible,
practical sort of girl, had got over
that carly affair so wonderfully, so
unlike the way some girls would
have taken it. Perhaps only
her grandfather guessed how it had
really taken" her. No words, only
q sort of iropic tenderness, passed
between them, but Mauve knew the
old man knew and was sorry.
What she did not know was that
it was not now the defaulting lover
whom she mourned.
Long ago, really, had disappeared
the actual memory of that young
man., Faded from her mind were
the lines of his face (that she still
treasured in the snapshots of that
season., muted the sound of his
voice that had cried, "Mauve, you
sweet thing! You care?" What re-
manned now was a single, q de-
structtyc obsession; no more love
for the dead Basil than the ivy is
itself the young oak about which it
mas wrapped itself and which, inch
by inch, it chokes. She did not
realize that We're Basil now to ap-
pear, alive, before her, he would
nave no more in common with the
idol of her own gloomy fancy than
he would with
Say With this Mr.. Laverock, the
motorman, who patched" as he
called 1t, in caravan, who played
tennis quite decently. and was a
help with visitors, and who (though
there would not appear to be very
much in him did at least manage
to provide certain amount of
amusement for grandfather. Which
was something.
And now, apropos of people think
ing for years of the same love. this
Young Mr.. Laverock turned to her
On the green bank and asked Gould
you?"
She said nothing for a moment.
she looked away from him toward
Inc depths of the woods into which
those lost-halL seekers had disap-
peared.
Then with little nod of her dark
mead In that direction, she said.
THOSE TWO people at least don't
seem to find any difficulty in NJ
They got engaged when she was
eighteen and he was twenty, and
they have always been devoted to
each other, just like that"
by Jove, what lot they must
see in each other" murmured
Afchle Laverock, with 4 kind of won :
derlng envy. True he did not thin,,
he could ever "sce all that" in anv
girl for so long-but also he thought
that no girl he had ever met would
nave, for so long, adored himself.
He said: There are some human
beings still, then, of the Blue Rock
why Blue Rock. Mr.. Laverock ?"
mean Blue Rock pigeons, tina t
select the one life long mate and are
never known to divide. Very DIFF
ierent from some other birds. Vel
low-hammers, for instance. - If
one could only think" said Archie
soberly, that there was just the one
other person out of. the whole wide
She looked at him. interested now
th mave you; you %, she asked. never
Had he? Had he not? Too often
ALREADY this young man had
imagined that he had found the one
siri out OF all the world for him:
nad thought that she was embodied
in this, that or the other girl Who
had sat beside him closer than Miss
Rice Mathews at this moment. Too
otten he had banked on what he
1et; had been sure that this
particular girl (meaning Lucy Joy
ana al! those predecessors of hersl
was different" Too often he In d
seen 1t turn to be all a mistak c
again. and perfectly genuine had
been his disappointment. deem
Though brief his regrets. So now
ne sat silent. watching the flight of
a Veivet-bodied bee through the late
AFTERNOON sunshine to q spray of
honeysuckle beckoning out OF n
tangle OF shrubs. Its hum shut
aoWn INTO wooing silence as 1t held
10 me Hover fingers. then broke Out
asain as the bee spun upward, sped
oh-Whltnerf To the spiced ber-
ssa.'o. Oh the lower garden. it may
te; OF 70 the dangerously pale.
aoiuptuousiy perfumed Mrs. Sinkins
ot The border or 10 the pillar.
roses. Restlessly Questioning. saai,-
I,ls ever Tor the sweeter honey yet
they cannot stay these arrant
Mauve; in her matter of fact tone
mat did now include certaiu
lIlendiiness toward this young man
On the grass beside her. beean
2gaih: i thould think the Rlua
hock tyne, as You call it, is the tvne
20 De. That is, Of course, If you arc
lucky enough to have found the
other Blue Rock" 'ie
Oh. yes, the world was ro,da Co.,
mem, the Rover agreed. J;ttia
Mlstiuily, a little bitterly. He was
az tne mood when he wonderod
Whetner the world was ali wronr
or whether 1t was all his fault that
ne was like this. or what. "Everv.
sning is arranged to suit the con
slant lover Society IN based on the
, ,s that everybody is exactly like
enose friends of yours"
wen! They" again she nodded
toward the wood, "are quite thu
most contented people I know
everything to each other. she
.old me that she had never
anGHgnt OF anybody but Christopher
anu .hat Christopher had never
iifa,e at another woman in his