Evening star., 1925-02-12

Continued from Yesterdays Starr
Aniline-annihilate two words
kept coming and going. If her head
had been clearer she would almost Ger
tainly have fallen into the trap which
had been laid for her. Molloy stopped
drumming on the table and clenched
his hand. With all his strength he
was praying to the saints in whom
he no longer believed. Behind the
screen % men waited in. a dead
silence. Renata was not frightened
any more, but she was tired-oh. so
dreadfully tired. Annihilate-aniline
the words and their similarity of
sound teaSed her. She turned from
them with little burst of petulance.
II didn't hear anything like that.
Oh, do let me go to bed! l only heard
some one call out
'Yes?" said Number Two.
He said, The door, the door" and
then there were all those lights"
CHAPTER ii.
Jane Smith sat on a bench in Ken
sington Gardens. Her entire worldly
fortune lay in her lap. 1t consisted
of two shillings and eleven pence.
She had already counted the pennies
four times because there really should
have been three shillings. She was
how engaged in making list in
parallel columns of (a) those persons
from whom she might seek financial
assistance, and (b) the excellent rea-
sons which prevented her from ap-
preaching them.
Jane had a passion for making lists.
Years and years ago Mr.. Carruthers
had said to her, MY dear, you must
learn to be businesslike. I have
never been businessllke myself, and
1t has always been a great trouble
TO me-" And then and there he and
Jane had, in collaboration, embarked
upon the first list. 1t was a thrilling
| list, a list of toys for James very
. first Christmas tree. Since then she
had made lists of her books, lists of
her clothes, shopping lists. and an
annual list of good resolutions.
Jane stopped writing, and began
to think about all those other lists.
She had always showed them to Mr..
Carruthers, and he had always gazed
at them with the same vague benign
ness, and said how businesslike she
was getting.
Dear Cousin James-Jane was rich
instead of poor when she thought
about him. She looked across at the
trees in their new mist of green, and
then suddenly the thin April sunshine
|dazzled in her eyes and the green
swan into a blur. Cousin James was
gone, and Jane was alone in Ken
sington Gardens with two-and-
.eleVenpence and a list.
She opened and shut her eyes very
quickly once or twice, and fixed her
.attention upon (a) and (b) in their
parallel columns. At the top of the
Hist Jane had written Cousin Louisa"
and the reason against asking Cousin
Louisa's assistance was set down as,
Because she was a perfect beast to
my darling Jimmy and worst beast
to me, and, anyhow, she wouldn't"
In moments of irreverence the late
Mr.. Carruthers-the Mr.. Carruthers,
author of five monumental volumes
on Ethnographical Differentiation
had been addressed by his young ward
and cousin as darling Jimmy
Prof. Fhilpot came next. A
darling, but he is sitting somewhere
In Central Africa in cage learning
TO talk gorilla. I do hope they
haven't eaten him, or whatever they
| do to people when they catch them"
Smiths association with the world of
science had not succeeded in chasten-
ing her grammar.
James pencil travelled down the
Hist.
"Mr Bruce Murray. In Thibet
IStudying llamas."
"Henry"-Jane shook her head and
solemnly put two thick black lines
Through Henry's name. One cannot
ask for financial assistance from
Young men whose hand one has re-
fused in maria ge-"even if it was
three years ago, and he's probably
been in love with at least fifteen
girls since then"
"Henry's mamma-well, the only