SEVENTH INSTALMENT
Tony, his eyes alight—("But it
doesn’t mean anything, it’s just
that I’m a new sensation!” Ellen
tried to tell herself)—was helping
her out of the car. All at once his
attitude toward her held a dif
ference—it was as if she had grown
very soft, very fragile.
"Well, here we are,” said Tony.
"Any last statement you’d like to
make to the press, Miss Church?
Before entering the church?”
Ellen essayed a smile. She was
realizing that she v^uldn’t be Miss
anything much longer.
"Keep back the reporters! big
boy. For I’m to be queen of the
May!”
Tony was answering seriously,
"you haven’t any flowers!”
And then they were in the
church, and it was dim and cool
and sweet and somehow very lone
ly. And Ellen ceased suddenly to
think of Tony, and thought instead
of her mother. Lying in a cool,
sweet, lonely place. Of her mother
—who had warned her, with that
sad, whimsical mirth, against the
very thing she was about to do.
That oh, God—her heart had al
ready done!
The minister had come swiftly
into the room. A minister who
wasn’t at all odd; who looked at
Ellen a sif he liked her and who
shook hands, firmly, with Tony.
The minister examined the marri
age license, and said to Ellen—
"You’re very young, aren’t
you?” And, "Haven’t you any
people you’d like to have with
you? Or—” at the shake of Ellen’s
head, "or any friends, to be witnes
ses?”
Again Ellen shook her head,
mutely, but Tony answered. He
wasn’t awed by the loneliness of the
church, not Tony—he wasn’t eaten
by memories!
"We didn’t even remember we
had friends,” he told the minister.
"Say, isn’t there someone around
here who can witness this for us?”
The minister nodded. He wasn’t
as young as Ellen had thought, at
first! He left the chapel. And,
while he was gone, Tony bent
swiftly, and kissed Ellen. It was
not the kiss of possession—it was a
comforting, friendly kiss.
Just exactly the sort of a kiss
that Ellen needed. It made her
whole soul turn to Tony.
The minister was back again
with a man in overalls, with grass
stains on them—he would be the
handy man who took care of the
square of lawn—and a tall girl with
spectacles. He had put a gown over
his dark suit, and he carried a slim
prayer book in his hand.
"Stand together, so,” he told El
len and Tony. "No, in front of me.
Join hands. No, your right hands
»
Ellen, in a daze, felt Tony’s large
fingers close about her small ones.
I"he minister’s words swam around
her in a mist of sound. Beautiful
words—liquid, musical phrases—
the marriage service.
"Dearly beloved,” said the min
ister, and then—
"For better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer—” (Was Tony glancing f
down at her—didn’t he know,
touldn’t he guess, that the money
didn’t matter?) "In sickness and in
aealth . . .”
A mist of words. And the tall j
’irl fussing with a hang nail on her,
thumb, and the man in overalls,
icratching his ear, and a fly buzzing)
ust in back of the minister’s head, i
\nd Tony’s hands so damp, so slip-)
aery with moisture, that.it was^
lard for him to place the little
apphire hoop on Ellen’s finger. ]
The minister was speaking.
"How do you do, Mrs. Brander!”
le said, and Tony was handing him
i bill that shone very yellow in the
lim light.
And then Tony’s arms around
ter, right there in the church. And
his lips asking questions against her
lips . . . And her lips answering
those questions . . .
"Mrs. Brander!” As she sat across
the suavely white luncheon 'table
from her new husband—nervously
sipping a tomato juice cocktail and
trying not to quake both inwardly
and outwardly—Ellen endeavored
to tell herself that it was really her
name, now. And then she realized
that Tony’s voice was speaking. A
light voice—a gay voice.
“Oh, she said, summoning up
what courage she could. "Oh, so
you’re still there!”
"And will be,” answered Tony,
"for the next fifty years, at least!”
It wasn’t such a gay luncheon,
after all. Not exactly the sort of a
luncheon that a boy and a girl
might have together, after a chance
meeting at a jazz party.
In a short while it was over.
And Tony, rushing around the
table so that he—and not the waiter
—might pull back Ellen’s chair,
was saying—
It wasn’t such a gay luncheon,
after all.
what now?”
Ellen’s winglike eyebrows were1
dark smudges in her white face.
"Why, now,” she said "now, you
know, Tony! I’m going on to Dick, j
To pose for him.”
She paused, but the thunderbolt
didn’t fall, not as she had expected
it to—not as it fallen before.
Tony’s voice was low, and didn’t
say anything at all harsh.
"How long will you be?” he ask
ed. "You’ll let me drive you to his
place, of course. This Dick Alven’s
I mean. And I’ll stop for you, if I
may, after the posing is done.”
It was his compliance that hurt.
Ellen again felt the rush of tender
ness toward him, wifely tenderness, j
that she had felt in the little chapel.
She was eager to release the thing'
that was disturbing Tony, to tell
bim that, as far as she was concern
ed, the posing was done, now! That
she didn’t care if she never saw a
studio again. That she didn’t even
:are if Dick—dear, honest, faith
ful Dick—were quite swept out of
ber life. She wanted to look into
the eyes of her husband, to look so
long that her whole soul would be
lost in their blueness, but —
"It’ll take about two hours,” she
said. "I’m due there at three. Yes,
you can drive me to the place,
rony. And you may,” she didn’t
want, somehow, to give the per
■nission, but there wasn’t any way
Dut, "you may stop for me, at five.”
In silence they entered the red car
igain. In silence they drove once
=1
more up the proud avenue. At El-!
len’s bidding Tony turned off, at
last, into a side street—into a small
alley. And then he stopped the car
in front of the building that she
indicated.
"I suppose,” he said with a child
ish wistfulness, "that you’d not like
to have me come up, and wait for
you in the studio? I’d be very
quiet.”
But Ellen shook her head in
swift terror, a terror that was in
spired by a certain sense of em
barrassment.
"Not now, Tony!” she said. "Not
till five. I’ll be down here, at the
door, waiting then.”
Only Ellen—wearily climbing
the sta'Js to Dick’s high attic
studio—didn’t know how long
Tony sat in the red roadster, beside
the front door of the studio house.
With- his hands clasped tight on
the wheel, and his mouth not very
firm, and his eyes staring straight
ahead at nothing at all.
„ Just before she knocked on the
aoor oi luck s stuaio, even as ner
hand was raised for the knocking,
Ellen remembered her wedding
ring. She couldn’t have forgotten
it—not really —it was such a gal
lant, glittering small ring. She drew
it off so sharply that one of its blue
stones scratched her littlest finger
of all, and folded it into the corner
of her handkerchief, and placed the
handkerchief in her pocket. She
transferred the other ring, the great
solitary sapphire, to her right hand.
She felt like a feminine Judas as
she did it.
* Dick was standing before a
huge canvas, with his paint-marked
shirt carelessly open at the throat,
and his hair rumpled, and his eyes
intent upon some detail of his pic
ture.
She went behind the screen in
Dick’s studio. And got out of her
blue crepe dress (her wedding
dress!) and put on the white buck
skin suit and the coral and tur
quoise beads. And like a little girl
—only one dressed up to play pre
tend—she emerged from behind
the screen, and took her place in a
kneeling attitude, with her two
pink palms cupped together in
front if her, and her face raised to
the smoky blur of the studio ceil
ing. She was an. Indian priestess,
you see. A very young one—suit-|
able to belong in any school.
Dick made no comment. He:
painted with bold, sure, brisk,
strokes.
It was four-thirty. Ellen, count- j
ing the strokes of the clock that I
sounded from the Metropolitan!
Tower, not so far away, wondered
if Dick were almost through with
painting. Dick was painting absor
bedly. She knew that she couldn’t
break into his absorption, no matter
what came of it! The years with
her mother had taught her not to
interrupt creation unless some des
peration drove her to it. However,
she asked herself, wasn’t marriage a
desperate matter? Wasn’t it, in the
final analysis? She began to count
her heartbeats—each heartbeat was
i second, wasn’t it? She counted for
a long while. . . .
The clock chimed again in the
Tower. It was four forty-five.
"Almost done?” she ventured
nervously. But Dick didn’t answer,
which meant that he wasn’t.
There was a shuffle of feet on
the stairs. Ellen started, her nerv
ousness growing, before she realized
that the shuffle was too light to be
made by Tony’s feet. It must be
a girl who was coming.
It was a girl. It was Claire, per
fectly groomed from her slippers of
suede to her soft straw beret.
"I didn’t expect to see you here,”
she said, "after what I heard! I
thought for once that I might get a
break and find Dick by himself.”
Ellen hadn’t heard the last part
of the other girl’s speech. Her
whole being stood forward, oh tip
toe, to catch the first part of it.
"What have you heard?” she
asked, in a breathless little voice.
"From the tone of her,” she said,
'you’d think our ewe lamb had
something on the old conscience,
what? Never can tell, can one,
Dicky? However,” perhaps she
sensed the hysteria back of Ellen’s
blazing eyes, "however, it was this!
I heard that Sandy was out gunning
for you. That he was abandoned,
absolutely abandoned by you, at the
Six Arts last evening. That you
blew, just before dawn, with a;
handsomer man. _How’s that for
scandal, Dick? How’s that—”
Dick was scraping the paint from
his palette. He held his palette
knife very much as though it were
a dagger.
"Ellen told me all about it,” he
sdd briefly.
The clock struck five—the clock
in the Tower. And Ellen, who for
a moment had forgotten, whirled
around on one slender moccasined
heel.
"Oh, I must run,” she said. "I;
really must, Dick. I’ve a date for
five. I must—”
Claire hitched her skirts the mer
est fraction of an inch lower. "I
suppose,” she said, "that the red
Rolls, at the curb, is waiting for
vou?”
Ellen was staring toward the
screen, but she stopped short at
Claire’s words. Stopped for a blank
second as Cinderella must have
stopped when all of her loveliness
was turning back to rags.
"It’s not down there already?”
she asked. "Why, I said—”
Claire was laughing. Her laught
er blew, like thistledown, against
the sound of feet—the sound of
feet, once more, climbing the stairs.
Again Ellen’s heart stood still.
For this time the tread was unmis-!
takably masculine. Again she, her- !
self, stood still, with her eyes on the |
door. Knowing, even as she waited, j
that the anxious eyes of Dick, the
scornful eyes of Claire, were uponj
her.
And then the door opened and
Ellen, with relief bubbling up to
her lips, found that she was laugh
ing
Only she shouldn’t have laughed,
really—not at Sandy! For Sandy’s
face was as lugubrious as it was
angry.
"I thought maybe I’d find you
here,” he told Ellen. "Say, you’re a
peach, you are! I hunted all over
the whole hotel for you.”
Ellen didn’t say anything. She
merely stood, in her white buckskin [
suit, and rocked back and forth
with the storm of her mirth. Only j
it wasn’t just good clean fun, that:
mirth—it was something of a men- j
tal upheaval. j
“I’d like to know how you go:|
like that, all of a sudden. Going so
loose, I mean. After all, I’vp heen I
pretty regular—” stormed Sandy. I
"No, Dick, I’m darned if I’ll can |
it!—It hasn’t always been the easi-'
sst thing in the world, letting you j
get away with murder, just because
you’re supposed to be a wide-eyed,
innocent. And then you treat me
like a sap!”
Suddenly Dick had laid aside the
palette with which he had been toy-1
ing. In long strides, he had crossed
the room to Sandy’s side. As he
stood there, he looked very formid
ible, for all his gauntness.
(Continued next week)
The children are told it is very
important for them to sit up
straight, and as we have never no
ticed them slumping down in their
seats at Thanksgiving dinner, all
we have to do to keep them straight
is to serve turkey every day.
The stars are said to influence our
destiny, but somehow when we
have allowed the stars to cultivate
Dur gardens and keep the job going,
they didn’t seem to influence the
destiny of these activities so much.
checks
COLDS
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Next to Ketchie Barber Shop. '
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Phone 43 3 120 E. Innes St.
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PUBLIC SALE
I will offer at Public Sale on my farm 2
miles west of Salisbury, on the old
Mocksville Road on
Saturday, December 1st, 1934
Beginning at 1 p. m., the following
15 Head of Dairy Cattle—All Milk Cows—
Guernseys and Holsteins; 1 Registered Guern
sey Bull—4 years old; 2 Mules; 1 Manure
Spreader; 1 Ford Tractor, Side Plow, Disc Har
row and Wood Saw; 1 Wheat Binder; 1 Corn
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1 Mowing Machine and Rake, together with
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Milking Utensils, Including 1 Pulsator, 6
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Having sold my farm and dairy I am offering
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and make no reservations. Any of the above
may be inspected prior to date of sale.
November 15, 1934.
T. W. WATKINS
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