Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-08

! Intoxicating as might be the breath of
opium! Confusion Of white napery,
bare shoulders, gliStening silver, wreath
ing smoke, Staccato laughter, tipSy
singing, whirling dancers-an indiS-
tinguisiable mixture Of sights and
coundS in a single Sensuous impression
| sprawled before her senses! Then the
babble of human voices, that is like
nothing so much as the babbling of
water!
! Phyllis might have been flung into
the midst of that riotous banqueting
scene, air-cushioned from physical
shock, but mentally paralyzed by the
| impact of its actually.
Again hundred details sprang into
outstanding relief in fashion that no
| stereoscopic photography ever ap-
preached. A slender hand, a glittering
| glass, wet forehead, cigars red coal,
| whites Of eyes, dangling jewels, sagging
| lipsi
No conceivable counterfeit of the real
! could produce such result. No con-
| sciously acted scene ever contained a
fraction of this kaleidoscope effect
No staged production ever made such
an artful attempt to mask human
sordidness. Variety no mere magma
ton could fabricate, detail in shadow
| phere inf1amed with the odors of in
cense the fumes of wine-and the
magnetism of human presence!
And there!-there was Julia De
Lorme! Julia De Lorme, who had been
found drowned only last week at Cata-
lima! There-putting out her little live
red tongue saucily at the man whose
bulk hid her slender, nesting figure +!
And Ollie Rand-young master of the
violin-who lost his priceless left hand
at the Haviland Hotel fire-there lift
ing glass with it as he tossed sly
smile To-
One does not doubt the evidence of
the senses when the senses conspire to
! convince. But when all ones senses
conSpire to contradict themselves |!
Phyllis Norman knew she was looking
at the Whippleton dinner. Yet she sat
in Brainard's studio! She had been in
the Whippleton house-she knew this
room. A dozen faces at the table she
knew now among the strange ones.
But that dinner had occurred months
ago and passed into the annals of
notorious affairs-that dinner whose
very scents came pungently now to her
nostrils!-whoSe very guests But
Radley BrainardS voice broke across
its din. raised to make itself heard. like
that of an operator above the clatter of
machine!
Shocked, Aunt Rel?" he asked.
Phyllis turned faint. "Stop, Radley!"
she called to him desperately. She
covered her eyes and tried to steady
herself. 1t was as If the sense of
equilibrium were lost. For a moment.
as the sounds about her suddenly died
away she had the sense of consciously
consciousness c1n II
her mother abruptly over her, calling
to her in alarm--and she uncovered
her eyes again to the white room.
They were all up about her-dis-
turbed, concerned. She must have
tainted in reality. REALITY She looked
about at them. Their anxious, inuuir-
ing eyes, their questioning lips. were
no more truly flesh and blood to her
perception than had been the eyes and
lips of Julia De Lorme a moment ago.
If they were here, where was that
woman who had been found drowned a
week ago?
Phyllis caught at her mothers hand.
The older woman dropped down beside
her
why, child, what is it? You-surely,
you-"
It can't endure It'll" cried PHYLLIS.
her mind whirling. IT can't bear til"
she reiterated, aware that sudden be-
lief in what Radley had said of the
miracle he had wrought was what
robbed her ideas Of all stable founda-
tons; and still conscious that such a
conviction stored up long account for
reason to reckon with when reason
could find its bearings again!
All the known facts of time and place
were thrown into chaos by the only
assumption that could fit the condi-
tons.
Her mother was grooming over her,
her father almost sharply commanding
her attention, John trying to reassure
her, with her hand in both of his;