Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-03-19


ton. "One went right into the
copper beech there-I marked 1t.
THE other was much further
down, Bubbles" said the girl. LOOK
this way
They disappeared. with a COM
bitterness, into the rustling LEAKAGE.
The Rover turned to Miss Rice
Mathews. DO you think we've time
for a single"
Il think so.''
will you give me game, them"
Right" She took the opposite
side of the court, and Archie saw
her, for the first time. fully. playing
She, he discovered after the first
volley, became changed, expressed,
TRANSPORTED by movements; she was
that kind. Boyishly slim, more than
boyishly graceful, the pale-clad
shape of her few to and fro upon
that brilliant green court; the
gesture of her service combined
strength with dainty finish, her de-
Tense was Il picture.
"Oh, well played" sang out the
Rover admiringly, as. with the
swoop of a swallow, she batfled his
ball Her eyes, usually so aloof,
were brightly quick upon his attack
as, in the growing interest of the
game, she forgot all else. Under her
fine but colorless skin there crept up
the flush that had glowed. so lovely,
that first day under the rain.
All OF q sudden he realized some
thing that he had never seen before.
by Jove. she's good-looling."
For it was not only the flush of
hnt fro
was another animation. He felt
that, as she sprang here and there,
he saw more of the real girl in one
moment than he had seen of her in
Il week of hens and polite good
mornings.
In fact, this was much more she
as she ought always to be; this was
the Beethoven girl come to life.
He had to work to win that game.
Then they sat down together on
that sloping bank.
NO sign of those two" said
Archie lightly.
"Oh. they will be long time find
ing that ball." Mauve answered,
the grassy bank beside her and
speaking in q tone more girlish than
he had heard from her before.
They've been looking for it for
eight years now
Eight years."
Il mean, of course, that they've
been engaged for that time
The Rover gaZed at her with those
, csangeful eyes of his. For eight
Aears?" he exclaimed. ITO each
other?"
! At the UTTER the incrcdulous
darkness of the young mans tone,
Mauve broke out into frank laughter.
DO you think it's too long to think
.. of the same person. Mr.. Laverock 2"
"1-well. Could you do ito"
He asked her this, but this was not
only what he wanted to know. He
was even fuller than he had been of
curiosities about this odd, incon-
! sistent, battling girl. But he was
still far from learning what he only
heard later on-the love story of
Mauve Rice Mathews.
Thought he did not hear it then.
we can forestall him. For this was
it.
In that wonderful spring of 1914,
the spring that marked the last fling
of leisured love and luxury for so
many, the crest of the last wave of
the old worlds tidal prosperity.
when good silk stockings could be
had for half a guinea pair and
Then Punch still cost threepence.
MauVe as slim, eager debutante of
eighteen had been brought out and
given Il season in town by one of
these fairy godmothers who took for
their business the metamorphosis Of
Cinderella.
The Prince was played by a Young
man whose Christian name was
Basli. lie was i'll the brigade, and
he had been told off by the god
mother CHS aunD to help to give
The child as good Il time as possible.
She was an eltin creature whose
country color came and went pi-
quantity enough under the smart
mats his aunt was teaching her how
to wear, and he shortly found it
amusing to f1irt with her.
Ihey became engaged; Mauve
with the whole of her newly
awakened heart. the young guards
man perhaps q trile dismayedIy.
Still. one has to marry some time
and some one. She was attractive
as well as the kind of girl one does
marry.
She would have been ready to
marry him the week war broke out.
He told her that it would not be fair
upon her.
oV u'Ii louS anu poignant leave
from the front was hers: the next
saw him married. Married to one
of these sudden little girls from
Nowhere whom no one has seen or
heard of before then These things
do happen. and without explanation.
Quite straightforward and adequate
lrttle note he wrote to beg his
previous fiancee to forget if she did
not forgive him.
Mauve Rice Mathews had never
been able to do either.
Not time. not her own wears Of
war work on the land, not the morn
ing which showed Basil's name in
the Times list Of those killed in
action, not the appearance upon the
scene of another man who had loved
and wanted her-nothing had chang
cd for Mauve the misery of her dis
appointment