Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1936-10-06
CHAPTER 12

THE HOLIDAY was on Tues
day.
On Wednesday at lunch, Alix
said to Kathleen Crosby, Imagine,
Kathleen, how beautifully your
casual idea for me to take up golf
worked into the scheme of things!"
Kathleen didn't look at her. She
ought to have been ashamed of
that deliberate move. she thought,
but if it were to mean AliX'S hap
pineSs as we'll as her own, she
wouldn't feel too bad about it.
If it meant that it would be an
agent to draw AliX and John Sayre
together and Alix wanted that, it
would have been right. If it meapt
only unhappiness for Alix and if
she believed that Alix might care
for Kim, it would have been very
wrong. For she had deliberately
suggested the idea of Alix's learn
ing the game because she knew it
was a social weapon.
Connivance, schenling were not
in Kathleen's makeup and she sur
prised herself by having any part
of it. But she had believed that
Alix's interest in John Sayre was
more than the admiration Of an
employee for her chief.
And while Kathleen felt a very
real affection for Alix, Alix was
hurting her. Unconsciously, Kath-
leen knew. Because Alix didn't
know how bringing her loneliness
and appeal into the lives of Kath-
leen and Kim, she had threatened
the lifelong structure that had
been so long building between the
second cousins.
Had Kathleen been another kind
of girl, she might have done one
of two things: She might have
brought her love for Kim out of
hiding, confided in Alix the love
that had been there ever since she
could remember. Not the easy
cofnrade cousin-and-cou love but
the love Of a woman for the one
man she knows surely to be her
hearts choice forevermore.
Had she done that, both Of them
might have been spared the I'M
happiness that lay so surely be-
fore them. But she couldn't have.
Her love was inarticulate, shy, and
she had no premise on which to
assume that it was her right. I'm
til Alix came into their lives, there
had never been a woman other
than herself in Kim's life. Kim
had made love to her in silences.
Silences that needed no words. It
was as much part of them as
their manners, the things they did
as we'll as the things they thought.
No, she couldn't have told Alix.
Nor could she have taken the
other way, to Danish Alix from the
circle of her life. 1t would have
been so easy to safeguard herself
and. Kim by simply dropping Alix
with the easy, deadly politeness of
her class. But she liked her, she
couldn't be unfair to her. Even
now when she couldn't be sure
that Alix was intrigued sufficiently
WITH JOlH Sdyre-Or not intrigued
with Kim. Because she loved Kim,
she couldn't understand why every
other woman in the world didn't.
She was hurt by Kim's failing to
tell her when he saw Alix. Hurt,
not because she thought that he
was deliberately keeping something
from her, or because she thought
she had any right to know. She
was hurt because it seemed so nat
ural for him not to include her. to
forget that she might be inter-
ested.
All of which was Of no doing
on Alix's part.
She smiled sweetly and sincere
ly at Alix, You're like a kid with
it's first doll, Alix. Tell me all
about it,
There really isn't an awful lot
to tell. He happened to come into
my office on business :"
Does he make a habit of call