Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-13
TwENTY-EIGHTH INsTALLMENT.

TWENTY INSTALLMENT.
" OR weeks after Wesley's death
Missile seemed unable to rally
herself. Eileen was impatient
4 with her.
why on earth should she
miss him?" Eileen demanded of Tom
my. You'd think it would be a relief.
He dissipated himself into his grave.
He treated her like dirt for 20 years.
And Just because he Soft-Soaped her
at the end she misses him! I'm going
to talk to her"
"I wouldn't if were you"
"Why not?"
Facts don't mean anything to her.
Let her alone"
LET her think Yves sprouted wings
at the end. And so go on grieving for
ever!'
He turned on her almost savagely.
For heavens sake let her have
something. Let her have her decent
grief, anyhow"
He was rather silent after that. He
had been a faithful husband to Eileen,
and loving one, an indulgent father
to Glare, but sometimes he wondered
about them. Was he anything more to
them than the source of all good things,
the good provider" of his early days?
He gave them everything they wanted,
paid their innumerable bills without
question and in return they gave him
something. But just what was it? It
was not love; 1t was even at times
family condescending.
Early that Spring Missile made jour-
ney to see her father. Lambert was in
his seventies now with a frail old body
which hardly lifted the bed coverings.
but he managed a certain jauntineSs
when he saw her.
Don't be too optimistic, Missiel I'm
good for 10 years yet"
But his lips were blue and his breath
Ing difficult
She stayed a few days, living at a
hotel. Adelaide was nursing him with
a perfect frenzy of sslf-abnegation, but
Missile saw that she worried him.
Before she left Missile installed a
pretty young nurse. and-the incorrigi-
BILE youth of the mamie sent her out
to buy him some silk pajamas When
the nurse had been there rather less
than an hour Missile overheard him
telling her that she had beautiful eyes.
Adelaide cried when she went away.
"Its dreadful to see him like this"
she said. He was always so gay and
so happy"
So gay and so happy Going deliber-
ately down the street, leaving Stella to
worry about the food and the rent.
Going blithely out of the house for good.
I'll send an express wagon around"
Playing poker that night on the train,
when Stella lay dying in the back room.
Cheerfully leaving Eileen and herself to
starve. Neglecting his dying mother.
And now living-and dying-contented
~ on Missiles bounty, trying to flirt with
the nurse.
SO gay and so happyl
And while she called the roll Of his
sins she was sorry for him.
She went back home again, and even
into her seclusion there penetrated the
prospect of war. She tried to shut her
ears to It, but 1t penetrated through
the walls into Wesleys study, where she
sat writing her letters to Eddie. I'm
afraid have no news" She would sit
and think. What would interest him?
What would he want to hear? II saw
Mary Elizabeth the other day, and she
asked for you" Mary Elizabeth was
one of the little girls who telephoned,
a slim quiet girl with big eyes, very
soft, very feminine. "She looked quite
pretty, I thought. Now about your
having car there"
She would write, and through the
walls would come the growing Of an
angry nation. She could not shut 1t
out. Often it made her hand shake
so that she had to take a fresh sheet
and begin again. When war was de-
clared she watched Eddie's letters. She
thought they showed constraint But
she still had hope. He was not yet 10,
and now that America was In, the war
would be quickly over. Six months,
nmaybe. Things were moving fast; Con-
gress voting war credit of seven bill
lions, lending three billions to the allies,
passing a draft act Ten million men
to be drafted. They would not need
Eddie. What would they want with
Eddie?
One day she found Mary Elizabeth