Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1935-05-24

love with you; and I said: 'Annabelle,
you old fool, you, Bobb Starr loves
you a heap, and you love him heap
and Bob Starr isn't really mean and
jealous and suspicious, like some
Northern folks. It's just cause you
hate jealousy so, that he seems to have
it, Sandy Powell lives right here In
this town, and I've played with him
since I was five. Kiss him? Why,
I'd kiss any sweet old boy, and it
wouldn't mean that" She snapped
her fingers and rested her head on the
divan back.
"You might" said Bob, wanting,
deep down, to make up, but too in
censed to try; "but my wife wouldn't
kiss any old boy" He mimicked
her without a drawl.
So it began again.
Bob, honey, sweet, don't you see
how it is? I couldn't marry you.
just can't tolerate jealous man. They
run me crazy. They do. think we
better go our ways, honey; and l
think we better go now.'
She wasn't angry, fact which prob
ably had most to do with infuriating
him; she was simply serious, judicial,
grave. She looked at him from across
the fine old time-worn room out OF
eyes as wide as heaven, and as full
of judgment.
There were tears in her eyes, he
knew, when she shut the door behind
him. But he had deep conviction
that the rift had been final. Pro-
fessor Lord had probably hit the nail
on the head when he said his daughter
told the truth, and didn't make threats
she wasn't prepared to carry out. But
the revelation didn't help any now.
Bob took the short way through
the railway cut to Furness Avenue,
where he boarded. The night seemed
cruelty humming with youth and sum-
mer. There was green smell every
where and when the bells in the chapel
began to chime, each note lacerated
his heart. Jealous? Maybe he was
morbidly jealous. He thought sud-
denly of his mother, in black silk,
dead a year. He could see her-as-
tonishingly, far back before his time
sitting primly in Vermont farm par
lor, not even holding hands with the
man who was to become his father; his
mother who, he knew, had never kiss
ed man until her wedding morning.
There had been time when that an
tique code had struck him as ridicu-
lous and even little prurient. Now,
to contemplate, it comforted him. :.
He decided, with an effort, that he
had escaped fortuitously from an i'm
possible alliance.
He went home, corrected quiz pa
pers until four, and went to bed. From
the adjacent table he picked up a
small box maze, used in the classroom
for learning, and habit-formation tests
on mice. 1t was an intricate confus-
ion of geometric lanes. 1t was devlish
he thought, with new apprehension
of the thing. He knew how the mice
must feel.
"Well, we'll. It's over," he muir
INJURED.
i He sent the seventeenth and short
est draft.
Dearest Annabelle:
Is there any condition under
/ which you would consent to see
me, at least, occasionally?
Devotedly,
\ Bob.
/ She answered him Immediately on
dog-eared sheet of letter paper
borrowed, plainly, out of visiting Mr..
Stearns S. Winwood, HIS pocket; for
his name, neatly printed across the
top, had been crossed out and Anna
bellies penciled in.
Dear Bob:
You'd always be welcome as
a friend, honey. But think I
have a plan which may work.
Drop in with the rest around four
tomorrow afternoon.
Love,
Annabelle.
He crumpled the letter viciously and
hurled it at his landlady's cat. "With
the rest at four!" he repeated angrily
He got there at half-past two.
"Well, honey. 1t is four?"
She came downstairs to him out OF
, the bury innocence of sleep wher
| he stood in the vestibule and called.
, "No, it isn't FOUR" he said; "but
. I wanted to talk bit before the 9th.
ers come"