The Coolidge examiner., 1932-04-01

as man. She soon began cOnfid-
ing to him matters that were en-
tirely out of the range Of her busi-
ness affairs. She told him how un-
happy she'd been with her husband.
how he'd neglected her and been
| unfaithful to her. She said that at
the time of his death she'd been up
on the point of leaving him. She
told him these things desperately,
forlOrnly, under the stress of what
he had believed TO be a profound
emotion. She put him under the
seal of confidence. He wasn't to
tell anybody. She didn't say in so
many words that he wasn't to tell
his wife, but he knew that was
what she meant.
1t had thrilled him to be trusted
with intimacies like that; enormous
ly it set him up in his own estima-
ton. He must be something more
than a dull midde-aged failure
when this charming, rather worldly,
young woman could turn to him as
| her friend.
The time came when, on wishing
him good night, she held up her
face for kiss, as simply as a child.
/ There'd been something almost I'M
| believable TO him about all this
that to him-married and forty-six
years old-it should come unsOught.
His response to her caresses was
a passionately made promise to
! himself that he would not betray
her trust in him, that she should
never find him anything but the
faithful. high-minded friend she
took him for.
Might the thing have worked out
better had he been less high-minded
about it? If he'd been simply
predatory male taking as much as
he could get, rather than a quixoti-
cally chivalrous fool?
AS far as his present relation
with Julia was concerned he'd be
no worse off now, he grimly reflect
ed had the episode with Ruth taken
| its natural course. There were
gusty, furious moments when he
wished it had worked out that way.
A straightforward, masculine sin
would be a preferable thing to feel
guilty about, if he must feel guilty.
With that on his conscience he
could go back to Julia and tell her
he was sorry. He would be sorry,
all right. He'd feel, no doubt, like
the very devil, but as a sort of
background to his repentance,
wouldn't there be comforting
sense, not of achievement exactly,
but of regularity? Anyhow, he
wouldn't be obliged to think of Ruth
laughing at him now.
Whatever buoyancy he'd found in
the act of running away, the sense
of adventure, of truancy, evaporated
when he got on the train to go home
again. 1t did no good to run away,
| he reflected, unless one could keep
on running. He couldn't. He had
to turn around and come back.
There was his job, his stale, un-
profitable job, waiting for him at
the end of the trip.
Ruth, thank God, wouldn't be
waiting. She'd have gone by now,
having made the discovery that he
wasn't quite the abject thing she
had taken him for. There was some
satisfaction in that. He rubbed his
! eyes and wondered why he'd tor
tured himself about her so long.
But Julia, with the children,
would be waiting for him. He tried
to imagine her a repentant Julia.
Ed, on going back to Buttermilk
| Brook, would have told her that
Ruth had sold her house and was
going away, and that his father
hadn't known of the plan. That
would have convinced her that she
had done him a gross injustice. He
imagined her passionately regretting
that she had written that savage let
ter.
He had answered it an hour be-
fore he took the train for California
and had felt at the time of writing
pretty we'll satisfied with what he
said. He'd told her he was making
little run to California by way
of a vacation and he didn't expect
TO get home until q few days after
she did.
The substance of her letter he
dealt with in single sentence,
pretty carefully and, he felt, salts
factOrily thought out. You'll have
learned, no doubt, from Ed that the
ground for your objection to return
ing TO Lakeside no longer exists"
That was dignifed, he felt, and
sufficient. Julia had told him not
to try to justify himself, and he'd
refrained from doing so. 1t wasn't
what she wanted. of course. She
wanted him to grOvel; to promise
her that he would get rid of Ruth.
Whether he'd have done that if Ruth
!