Evening star., 1941-09-21
Il Short Story Complete in This Issue

dark while he was in there the wind drove
the sleet in a silvery curtain past the street
lights. He stood at the top of the steps draw
ing on his gloves, slender fine drawn man,
his sharp featured face blank with fatigue.
The patient inside the house would recover,
this time, but he felt little enough triumph
over that. The cause of her malady was still
there, and it was beyond any help from him.
She was still young, she was beautiful. she
had money and prestige, and none of that
was enough for her. She had tried to kill
herself by an overdose of sleeping medicine;
it was for love, she said.
He saw others like her, people asking for
hypnotics, trying to escape into drugged
sleep from their panic and despair, people
who drank to raise their leaden spirits, people
afraid to lie awake, afraid to be alone, afraid
to grow old, afraid to live.
But he saw the valiant ones too, and there
were more of them. He sighed and dismissed
this sorry case from his mind. As he started
down the steps, his chauffeur jumped out and
opened the door of the car. well ~ we can
go home now, Paul" he said.
The sleet ratified against the windows; the
windshield wiper moved back and forth like
a nervous animal; at busy crossings. the
pedestrians came in focks, umbrellas held low
against the violent wind "There1l be plenty
of accidents tonight" said Paul.
Ihope Marian and Dilly are home, thought
the doctor, and the unreasonable anger of
fatigue stirred in him to think that they
ho 1v, tho P,,f ha
mastered that. He lit cigarette and leaned
back with the disciplined patience he had
learned long ago.
The canvas curtains under the canopy of
the apartment house made bright tunnel,
but the wind shook them and the sleet drove
under them. The doctor went in, rode up IN
the elevator and rang the bell of his apart
ment. Meta, the grave, composed colored
housemaid, let him in, and he heard the radio
going, a loud and ominous voice talking.
His wife was all alone in the sitting room,
leaning back on the couch; dark, gypsy-ike
in her striped red and yellow blouse. She was
listening to the war news with passionate
concentration thinking of her son, and of the
boy her elder daughter had married.
The voice stopped. and as she leaned for
ward to turn off the radio, she saw her
husband in the doorway. Sam" she said, her
dark face frightening. Il didn't hear you
come in, dear. Sam, you look tired. Sit down,
and I'll get you glass of sherry"
mo thanks, he said. "Dilly homer"
"Yes, she's in her ROOM"
Now he could rest He lit cigarette and
stretched out in chair. The sleet ratified
against the windows, the world outside was
bleak, but this house was wholly good.
k1E THOUGHT about Dilly, safe in her room.
She was the youngest of their three children,
the one he understood best, the one who had
always talked most to him. Even as little
girl she had told him things serious things,
without any shyness, taking it for granted
that he would understand her.
Sometimes he hadn't, but he never let her
know that. 1t seemed to him the most
touching the most impressive thing
that she should give him this con-
fidence, and he had tried to be very s
honest with her. 1t had not been easy to
answer little gray-eyed girl asking.
Daddy, what do you really and truly
Think" - about the immense and au-
gust riddles of life and death - and it
was not very easy now when she was eighteen.
She seemed to him very young for her
eighteen years, tall girl with fine sense of
style; very lovely, with her long light hair