The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1934-08-04

why am ] so nerFousg There's no
reason why he should ever know"
She relaxed; talked. laughed and
naturally. Letitia said the next day
at q luncheon. rShe's changed, mark.
edly changed. Really. you can't help
liking heri"
Marsha felt q difference in Bob
that night IL hurt her cruelty. The
doubt hetried TO stifle. stiifened him.
She thought EFT isn't true! It can't
bel Not with him."
And she was thinking OF some
ones saying that to keep love one
must run away from II. Perhaps she
had dreamed as a fool. she reasoned
bitterly. Perhaps she must tease
Bob. as she had other men. But she
could not!
However. shs would be m ore
guarded :. she would not bother"
him.
Tables turnedI
Bob tried, during the course OF the
next few days. TO dismiss the tor.
menting suspicion that Marsha had
lied to him In a way that was not
justified. For the most part his sus.
piclon Of her shamed him and II
made him humble and tender; but
occasionally Il turned him stir.
Why had she had to lie about
where she had beeng What had made
the necessity? The question logged
HIS footsteps to assume gigantic size
IL he but glanced its way.
Marsha. who even at first had felt
that life could be neither so simple
nor smooth as Doctor James
thought. considered with bitterness
how she had planned to tell Bob a
little something OF all he meant to
her and OF how she had had but to
tighten her arm around his neck to
know him rigid. remote. She had
crayed full honesty. and with tor.
menting force; thing impossible.
no doubt. TO find through humans
and in life.
VET. she remembered later. there
4 were In the calm that preceded
the storm moments so satisfying
that they left her hushed: upon her
knees mentally. 10 not physically.
and TREMENDOUSLY grateful.
The moments came at oddly as
sorted times: When she caught a
glimpse OF Bob shaving. perhaps. In
tent on getting the last whisker. Or
when she saw him struggling, q
light frown'o on his face. to repair a
broken chair round.
Before dinner on the evening that
prefaeed Godfrey Tarleton's call,
she walked the gravel paths OF the
garden with Bob past straw.wrapped
rose bushes. sun dial around which
drying vines sang a brittle song in
the sweep OF the wind. Facing the
sea one must push against the gale:
battle to be on. She loved It. Bob's
arm through hers. the way he held
her. close-pressed.
"I'd like" she said, ito come back
when we are very old and In June.
I'd like to know how Il looks in June
iress-this piace--and to come hack
after we've Travelled a long. long
way!"
lie paused to glance around the
gray. frost-bitten stretch and after
he had dropped to a sheltered bench
10 draw her down by him. he spoke.
"And l." he said. shall say, Here
Is a garden that was made June IN
late November By a woman's love-"
Perhaps" she suggested. "yon
Wlll rot feel like saying that when
! am very old. and you have known
me through many years."
Neither OF Us viii grow old" he
explained. ''for you know people
q mt who have gardens and sum-
ner. wherever. whenever, they want
HEM"
She said nothing; she wanted to
slip her hand In his, but sometimes.
The least OF little moves OF such sort
made him stiffen. He looked down
II her probingly and close to trag-
lcally. II seemed to him that. each
lay. she drew a bit farther away.
Well, he would give her time. all
he time she needed. She was rarely
sweet. generous. at moments. At
others. as now, sitting unearins.
while he tried 70 tell her something
Of the way he felt.
lie leaned forward TO pluck from
a drying stalk a pod In which ratified
seeds. Marsha saw those last lines
Of Muriel Stewards poem.
"Here I can blow a garden
with my breath,
And in my hand forest lies
asleep"
Bob heard her quote.
"Yes," he agreed. The pod opened,
aud In his palm were black pellets
that would make green leaves and
flowers and summer. He felt an ANAL
ogy. They we're planted side by side;
he and Marsha and the years ahead
we're for them. What soil is to .
plant or tree they could thrive.
or grow grudgingly with twists such
as one finds In stunted trees on .
coast. Il would depend, Of course.
upon how they enriched the years.
(csssisGs. 1889. ~ A. las4-TsylorJ