Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1925-05-08

knew very well that he would not go on
board the Aquitania, that he had come
to England to meet some kind of a
witch woman, that he had seen her
great dark eyes once and saw them
gazing at him out of every corner now,
ing out all that was to be known of her
and that In the end he would do some
unconservative, break-neck thing to
throw himself with a crash of cOnven-
tions into her lap and note what hap
pened afterward
Peters determination, making ready
to reject every advice of his counsel
ing and invisible second personality,
was completely wasted. Brena Selcoss
acted first.
On the third afternoon of his rest
lessnesS, when the night was falling
and the fog leaned on the exterior of
the window panes of his room like
pile of wet sleeps wool, he had start
ed lyric twenty-five times and TWEEN
ty-two times baked for meter or ex-
pressiye word, had crumpled up the
sheet of paper and thrown it at
wastebasket. His pencil was blunt;
the crumpled sheets, in the evil gray
light of late afternoon, having missed
their receptacle. lay around the floor
as If DeWolfe's product were not
poetry but snowballs.
I'm a nice chump to be writing
verses" he said to himself in the mir
ror. You look less of a poet than a
lion-tamer."
Some of Peters friends who are able
to realize that this man who can play
polo like a centaur actually Is the au-
thor of the lines beginning, Call We to
the souls of shadows would have
agreed with him. There were strips
of interviewer muscle upon his bare
brown forearms and a firmness about
his mouth, both frightened little by
his service with the army, and if there
is poet I'm him it is as Virginia
farmer once told him, "a streak of
something" perhaps indeed part of
that fundamental essence of Peter
which calls him to a many-sided life
Ab nC lOOhCO at Ills OWA tLOuUlCO
face in the mirror the telephone bell
rang.
Are you there?" inquired the opera
tor, using the conventional London
phrase. Right! Wait, please"
He heard voice which came out of
distance like voice which comes
nearer through damp grove of dark
green trees, like an aroma which comes
forward on the wind, until it rose
slowly to it's full power. When the
words were distinguishable he knew
that some one was asking for him.
"Yes," said he, for the moment en-
thralled by the warmth and rhythm of
that voice.
II must see YOU
Brena Selcoss had come to find him.
She had taken the Initiative; she had
come to London. He did not have to
say, who is this?' She had come.
Something, however, in that phrase,
Il must see you" said with intensity
by that extraordinary woman, about
whom the Benhams knew so little and
perhaps Muriel so much, filled Peter
for the moment with an inexplicable
dread. This sudden chill Of self-pres-
ervation was not founded upon the re-
pulsion of that telephone, II must see
you" uttered by female and always
forerunner of the unpleasant, nor was
it based upon the suspicion which he
had always had when, to use one of his
own phrases, "a man ought to know
that no woman who comes toward one
is safe" nor indeed did it rise from the
fact that he gave new credit to Mu-
rieps absurd warning that men who
knew Brena Selcoss disappeared like
broken soap bubbles. The dread that
Gated by some subtle message in hui
man voice which expressed some eter-
nal fear 1t came, perched upon his
soul for second. and then was gone.
He became at once the usual Peter.
thinking quickly, alive to the dangers
of woman who would follow a stran-
ger to London. suspicious of her and
above all thoroughly delighted to risk
himself in any tangle she cared TO
weave for him.
Where are your he said genially.
Sat Mulberry's,' she said.
@sTheateasroom? me
yes"
"Will you wait for me thereT asked
Peter. Please" His voice sounded
very young compounded of the
breathless expectancy and spontaneous
pleading of little boys
(TO BE CONTINUED0