The Washington times., 1937-03-05

1dGuS1, duu JONA NSNSN'
of the stairs"
Denise stood up, took her faith
er's arm, took her bouquet. At
the stairhead, Felicia preceded
her. The music swelled and rose,
clearer and clearer, an all-pervad-
ing sound finally, its cadenceS
blotting out any other refrain N
the mind.
Step by step she went down.
stairs and through the hall. Gil
bert Windon was waiting, looking
up at her. Beyond that small sea
of faces Of family friends, OF rela'
tives of EuStace's, Of her own
school friends, his face stood out,
with the most troubling look Of
radiance, of confidence, upon it.
Then she was standing beside
him. He was taking her hand.
She did not look at his face any
more, but at the familiar counte-
nance Of the minister who had
married her father and her
mother.
Gilbert Windon sat in the
crowded lounge of GroSVenor
House, surrounded by high-voiced
Britishers drinking tea, on a Sun
day afternoon in the spring of
1885. He was waiting for Denise to
return from call on a school &C"
quaintance who happened to be
in London at another hotel.
Something might have been de-
duced by an acute observer as to
the relationship between Gilbert
Windon and his wife by the fact
that he was invariably early for
their appointments, and she was
always conscientiously punctual.
He was early now, so that he
had unwanted leisure to think Of
her who still summed up all his
dreams, though through her he
had received the graVeSt disap-
pointment of his life.
Six months of the year of mar
riage he'd asked for were done.
He had had Denise's invariably
amiable companionship through
all the countries of the Mediter.
ranean, through a long succession
Of sunlit days against some of the
most exotic backgrounds on earth.
And sometimes he thought he'd
known her better in the time when
he was no more to her than a
casual guest at her fathers or
her sisters house.
How much he had hoped for in
his marriage he knew by the very
bitterness Of that hopes deferring.
He remembered that he had
laughed with genuine amusement
when Denise said, you mean a
formal marriage?" and he had
said, It didn't, but if you want it
that way, so it shall be-" or words
like that. He had been so conf
dent that with time, new scenes,
his presence constant in them. his
devotion undisguiSed, she would
turn to him with love.
From the Pyramids to Palestine,
from Venice to Barcelona, she had
turned to him with liking, her blue
eyes sometimes ardent with inter
est in something she saw, never
ardent toward him. Only, when
he made any special gesture Of
demonstrativeneSS, her eyes, even
her voice, grew terrified: and i'm
mediately he felt even worse than
il she had struck him!
So he was left in the undigni-
fled and rather ridiculous posi-
ton of a husband not husband.
There had been days VIII e n
that position infuriated him,
days when he forgot it almost in
genuine pleasure in Denise's COM
panionship, days when he decided
he hated her, days when he de-
cided she could not help not low.
ing him, and whatever she did was
right, because he loved her so.
Generally the situation left him in
q state where he thought, resent
fully, he had lost all his decisive
ness. Yet the only release from
that state was of necessity a ges-
ture so ruthless and so violent that
he never seriously considered max.
ing it.
AS near as he could come to
humor over the situation was to
determine that her feelings toward
him were not quite those Of a