The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1937-03-26

"It's nice, isn't it?" Cecily said.
1--WE should do it over for club
house."
Wei Jim's heart leapt and sank
again. We! Cecily and Jim.
Sitting in a deep window-seat,
looking out at the rain, they
did over the house.
Trough pine furniture" Cecily
said. Handmade and waxed."
''Things grilled in the kitchen fire
place." Jim continued. "Oysters
and steaks and chops"
"Waiters in jockey costumes"
Costumes! Hold on. This isn't
musical comedy"
II like you, JIM"
Cecilyl
All at once they were silent. The
gaiety splintered into crystals,
merged with the rain, was lost.
Cecily looked out through the win
dow, curtained with sliding beads
of moisture. Jim looked at Cecily,
her hands lying motionless in her
lap, the soft hollow at the base of
her throat, the lovely curve of her
cheek turned against her shoulder.
If he should touch her hand-n he
should press his lips against the soft
hollow in her throat where a pulse
stirred and fluttered - The rain
drummed a melody on the roof,
drummed in his ears, drummed out
reason and caution. Cecily!
She turned to him as though he
had spoken her name aloud.
"Yes?" Her voice was not quite
steady. Her eyes met his in long
questioning look, family startled.
For moment something trembled
between them, an evanescent emo
ton, fragile, tenuous, confusing.
Cecily stirred, glanced away, out
through the window again.
"Look!" Her laughter shook.
"That child"
Jim's eyes moved reluctantly
from her mobile face, followed the
direction of her glance. Susan, in
her fathers fishing-boots and SOU
wester, was sloshing through pud-
dies, making her way toward the
house. She saw Jim and Cecily in
the window, waved, broke into a
stumbling run across the lawn.
Cecily and Jim exchanged
glance of amused evaporation. The
emotion had vanished before it
could be held by word or a ges-
ture. Perhaps it had never existed.
But it had. The moment had passed,
was gone.
No, he had not escaped the
Vaughns; the new job did not termi-
nate Jim's contacts with Cecily.
She was at the riding academy the
day that Kay and Lenore arrived.
It was an afternoon late in Aug
ust with a suggestion of autumn in
the air and the sunlight. Jim sat
straddling the low limb of an oak
tree at the upper edge Of the drive.
He had been saving off dead
branches when Cecily rode in on
Lady and he dropped down on
the low branch to talk to her. She
sat on the horse only little below
him. Suddenly Lady began to
make FESTIVE movements. A car
was turning in at the gate.
Customers" Cecily said, her
voice interested and little excited.
"Swank customers!"
Jim hitched himself along the
limb for a clearer view of the drive.
The dark cherry colore. phaeton
shining with chromium, and driven
by an impressively uniformed
chauffeur with a small waxed mus
tache was creating a stir among
the workmen about the place. Jim
shared the general excitement. His
first instinct was toward escape,
for on the back seat of the car,
closed in by folding windshield,
like a rare exotic bloom in a for
lists display case, between Kay and
a gentleman Jim did not know, sat
Lenore.
"Who is it," Cecily asked, look
ing up at him.
Friends and relatives" he said,
answering Cecily's question: He