Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-15

tn HAT girl before the window
Her eyes had been so friendly,
so sweet so alive They had
Il made HIM fea as though he
knew her. OF course he didn't, She
had been looking at the animals. Per
haps she was a friend of that man
: Belts. Perhaps the man with her
might even have been Belts himself
What had he been like? Jack tried to
remember.
He turned en- the lights in his room
A bowl of flowers on his desk by the
window sent him a breath of fra
GRANGE on faint. soft breeze. A
quiet room. a lovely room. But empty
Of life. of reality. As he was empty
of. life. of reality. Cicely had been right.
1Ie wasn't real. He had thought OF
her as an empty shell. To her, also
he had been an empty shell. Empty
Hollow. All of life was the same,
He flung his hat on the bed, dropped
into a chair before his great, shining
orderly desk. Close by his hand was
q small ivory elephant. 1t was g
perfect piece of work. Each minute
detail was a perfection. And yet
and yet it hadn't the reality of the
ugly toy elephant, the grotesque and
t2ering tigeri
lkodt me- lHSI, WIS I1OL perfection
IT was lumpy. straddling. ugly? This
beautiful room was not reality? Real
lty was a dirty room where people
loved and hated and suffered?
Well, he would get away from it all
lie would travel. Some place in the
desk there We're folders OF steamship
companies. He reached down ana
pulled open the bottom drawer.
Then he smiled. Here he kent such
things as he had cared TOR in his little
boyhood! Ironic that lie should have
opened this drawer tonight. What
had he cared for?
Slowly he went through the tidy
piles of things What queer child
he must have been! Programs Wha1
lad a child of or 10 been thinking
of to treasure programs? Then there
flowed back over him memories thai
ne could not escape.
What a dull thing his child life had
been, No wonder he had plunged
irantically into life on The instant OF
n his release! Plunged and been sur
ieited! Tried TO swallow a great Gun
Iul at one gulp. And never again beer
thirsty! Somewhere, something haC
been wrong,
Down in the bottom of the drawer
nc found his hand fun Of "A dry dust
4 little Jumps that powdered as he hello
hem What was dust doing in his
desk? These little lumps--w hat were
they?
d. mly he struggled back along the
. Years. That mud? The garden? There
had been a little girl?
That girl in front of the shop win
dow?
He felt as though he knew her. a.
though he should remember hert II,
concentrated frowningly. Gave it vi
"A last with a sigh a shrug
Rang for Cotton, his man.
A certain dullnesS and apat hv huns
over the apartment when Judy re
turned from her ride with Tommy
The last guest was gone and Their,
was a sense of staleness in the air
Honey lay back in her chair
CARLY. her bright head making
fash of gold Ike sunlight against III
dusty blue OF the upholstery. VIII
the laughter gone from her face sh
locked suddenly drab. almost old. Sh
raised her eyes 10 look at Judy mad
"A q little tired gesture Of welcome.
DAbs was still leaning with his el
bows upon the table, as Judy had seel
linn when she left But there was
4 tlackness about his figure that mad
n what had been a graceful. vivid pos
Ilre into a saeging crouch. His eye
we're fixed on the guttering candle
and he turned and twisted an empt
glars in his thin hands.
Tired out?" Judy asked gently
She bent and blew out the dripping