Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-20

IL to his feet Morton looked at MIN
duly. He was tired. Conscious OF
an overwhelming WEAKNESS, stupefy-
ing him, weighing him down, as If heavy, inn
placable hands were pressing on his shoulders.
Think it over, JIM" Slade saying in
his quick, staccato way. you're just the man
to put that sawmill on its feet. 1t won't be
easy of course. But there's good salary in
it for you and a third of the profits after
you've pulled it out of the red And for
that money you owe, don't give it another
thought. I'll lend it to you at per cent
interest and you can pay back the principal
ST. 900 year."
Thanks, Tom; thanks lot I'll let you know
in the morning." Morton said but there was no
life in his voice, and for a long while after the
door had closed on SHADES quick, energetic
figure he sat at his desk staring ahead of him
with tired defeated eyes.
He should have been grateful to Slade and
in a way, an inert, exhausted way, he was.
Five years ago when he was "a and still hug
gng his illusions, he would have jumped at
this solution of his difficulties. But five years
ago he had not been the bankrupt he was
today.
And it wasn't only his debts nor the fact
that his business was staggering on weak, tot
tering legs that had stripped him. The cause
of his apathy, his disintereSt went deeper than
that. He had expected things of life, and life
had failed him Or, perhaps, he had failed it.
1t didn't matter which way you put it, the net
result was the same. And now it was nearly
Easter, the time for reawakening, but there
was no miracle in his heart.
NONE of the triumphs he had envisioned for
himself had come true None of the am
billions which had seemed easily attainable
in his young manhood had ever been achieved
He had been confident, swagger thinking the
world his foot ball. Fresh from college,
where he had been somewhat of campus god
because of the success with which he had cap
tanned the teams, he had thought in terms Of
victory.
He was laughing, debonair, a conner; believ-
ing in himself SO gorgeously that Mary-he
WINGED when he thought of Maryland be-
leved in him, too.
With what assurance he had stormed herI
With what exultation he had won her, snatch
ing her away from Peter Downes, the only son
and heir of the oil magnate, to whom she was
all but engaged.
'You won't regret it, darling. Some day
Wen have house that will make that pink
stucco place of theirs look like strawberry
sundae." he said, as he slipped his tiny diamond
on her finger
She had put her arms about his neck, he
remembered, and her eyes had been glowing
and proud when he swept her to him in the
hower-spiced sweetness of the Summer dusk
But the some day of which he had Dragged
had never come. He had failed Mary. The
tiny diamond, which he had promised to replace
with larger, more brilliant stone still winked
at him tauntingly from her finger. The small,
fve-room cottage in drab, questionable part
of town, into which they had moved when
Helen, their daughter, born, still rooted
them-leakily, as Mary often said-and what Is
more, 1t was mortgaged and much in need of
paint. And though they had car, it was
mot the costly low-hung, rakish affair he had
once pictured himself giving Mary on a birth
day or Christmas, but cheap square-buit,
four-cylinder make
Into Mary's eyes, once so proud and glow
ing with their faith in him, there had come
different expression. Gradually he had seen
the faith dimmed by doubt, and the doubt
harden to a look of permanent disillusion
Spring came and with it Easter, and every
year the dream had grown fainter
Poor Mary! For the bright some day which
he had promised her, she hoped no longer. For
years she had scrimped and saved and cut
corners, buying her Winter felts when it was
Spring, and her Spring hats in the Fall when
straws were bargains.
Don't worry darling. 1t isn't your fault
if things don't break for you. One of these
days you're bound to go over" she used to
hearten him, but that was before she had
come to have the patient, logged, lack-luster
look of women whose men have failed.
How completely she had accepted his de-
feat he had realized the past Winter when
she had taken a job with the Young women's
Club.
1--WE need money so terribly, Jim. The hours
are short and the salary good Juniors now
and though I've always said I'd never leave
him to the care of a nurse I've had to come
to it. You see, yourself, how the bills are pilng
up on us, and as for my clothes, they're in
rags. If take this job can help you with
the expenses and afford to have servant-a
dependable woman to stay with June while I'm