The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-06-05
WHAT
DID HE SEE
IN HERR"
IRON the day of her graduation
-~-s-~-s-~-s-~-s-~CO>s->-e.~-s's-s-~
By FANNIE HURST

TROM the day of her graduation,
r. 10 years before, from the high
i school of a large middle western
city, Ada Gilbert had been baf-
fled by the question which had first
assailed her when her old sweetheart.
Tom Cass, suddenly up and married
her classmate, Evelyn Day.
Whatever of pique and chagrin Ada
might have felt, were really beside
the question, because she had eloped
with the eldest son of the towns larg-
est banker the week before the an
nounced engagement of Tom and Eve
Ign.
But for years afterward. long after
the Tom Classes had moved East, that
question had flashed across the busy,
variegated days of Ada's life.
What had Tom Cass seen in evelyn
Day, who was one of those cOlorless,
nice-enOugh girls of dust-gray person
atty and no achievements L girl, as
Ada used to describe it. with no face
in particular, and no graces of mind
or manner that in any way matched
up to the sparkling distinction of Tom,
who had been a distinguished stu
dent at high school. had captured hon
Ors at college. and from the start had
seemed pre-destined for a career of
honor and Importance.
Not that Ada had any right to a
sense of Illustration. She became,
upon her marriage, the towns wealth.
est and most outstanding matron. But
just the same, one could not help
asking, whenever she picked up
newspaper and read the name of Tom
CaSs: what did he see in her?
What did he, who was once in love
with me, see in her?
1t is certain that in the subsequent
divorce between Ada and her husband,
the conscious thought of Tom could
have played little part. Nothing had
been farther from her mind than to
disrupt the snug bed she had made
for herself as the wife as one of the
most important, as well as the wealth.
est, men in town. But Ada had reck-
Oned without her host.
Practically out of a clear sky, the
husband of Ada underwent the indig-
nifty of establishing residence in a
state where divorce laws were notori-
ously lenient, in order to win his free
dom from her on grounds of mental
cruelty.
1t was the most devastating catas-
trophe Of her life. famous beauty
in her social world, power, a woman
of widest influences, the action came
as a bewildering blow to her pride.
With all her cleverness, her nimble
wit, her ability to lay her trump cards
with outstanding diplomacy, she had
had the supreme blunder of misjudg-
ing her husbands psychology. To her
he had been the plodding, rather stu
pid man, who concentrates brilliantly
in business, and bares his neck to
the yolk outside Most CALLING Of all
was the fact that his act had not
been precipitated by flare Of passion
for another woman. Nothing of that
sort had entered into his life. His
act was the deliberate cutting loose of
q man who finds his marriage ties
intolerable.
At thirty-ive, still beautiful, we'll
provided for, free, Ada found herself
curiously cut away from the security
and Importance that had been hers
as the wife of her husband. Life in
the same town was no longer toler-
able. Divested of the prestige, posi-
ton and local Importance, she became
merely a Divorce, living on a gener-
Gus alimony.
It was then she decided to move to
one of the large eastern cities where
the social horizon was wider, the life
more varied.
Once more 1t was the subconscious
that must have settled her choice on
the town in which dwelt the Tom
Classes.
In all the years which interviewed be-
tween her graduation from high
school, she had not clapped eyes either
upon Tom or Evelyn. In the interim
Tom had become one of the most
talked of magnates in the country. An
entire township, devoted to his steel
Industries, lay just outside the city
where he had built the famous Cass
castle. His industrial innovations, his
revolutionizing sociological schemes
were beginning to have their effect
the country, if not the world, over.
Tom Cass was household word. His
success had never faltered.
1t was into his town, with magnii-
cence of retinue, that Ada and her do
nestle caravan arrived with fanfare.
OF course, contacts with the Tom
Cases were Immediately resumed.
STRANGELY Evelyn seemed enthnsiaS ti-