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LIZABETH laughed at her uncle's re-iterated . j ? 1?tliiKA1 alttra wa i cautions ana airecuuna ,uioucui unj i saw the funny side of things but there - was an undernote of real irritation in her voice as she answered;- following him out upon the platform, "Good gracious. Uncle Henry, anybody'd think I never taken a railway trip alone before. I hop I've "got sense enough to travel forty miles without getting lost!" "But you change cars at Hoosac . Junction!" he called anxiously from the station platform as her train began to move. It was the seventh time he had told her that. "Well, what If I do!" she shouted with some heat As she turned back she thought resentfully, "As if I were a child or a half witted " Before she could finish the exclamation it had summoned suddenly to her 'mind the recollection of that talk with her sister. She hurried to her seat and as the train rattled and jolted its way out of the Albany yards she composed herself to think things over. It was literally the first quiet moment she had had ' to recall that talk, as unexpected and extraordinary on her part as on Dolly's. How could she have brought herself to speak so openly of what she had only allowed herself to half-guess as the cause of her uneasy discontent of the last year! She still' heard, as though it were something wholly disasso ciated from her, her own voice saying. "For mercy's sake, Dolly, don't torment me. as everybody else In the family does, trying to persuade me I ought to marry. I!m single, not in the least because I ob ject to matrimony, but simply because nobody no body, do you hear has ever proposed to me!" She had begun the sentence with her usual laugh ing briskness, and it was -with amazed shame that she heard a quaver in her voice at the end and felt the tears 6tinging her eyelids. It had been a relief to say it out. but she had never been so grateful to Dolly's matter-of-fact- coolness as when that young matron had answered calmly, "1 thought so all the time. It comes of your having had no mother to tell you things. The rest of the family think you must have had a dozen offers from. some of the men who spend so much time calling on you and taking you out, but any woman with an eye in her head could see that not one of them was in love with. you. Now you listen to me and learn some thing !" In the swaying train Elizabeth sat suddenly up right, as startled now as she had been at the time by the revelation of cynical philosophy 'underlying the smiling serenity of their rosy little Dolly. She exclaimed to herself again as she had to her mentor, "But that's all out of fashion now-a-days. Men don't like clinging, helpless women any more. Why, everybody says so!" She saw again Dolly's knowing little smile as she pooh-poohed' this naivete. "Don't you believe a word of it! Its like a change of fashion in hats! Men may look different but they're just the same under neath. They cant abide a capable woman. She makes them seem less superior. Why I thought every woman knew that!" "But that's despicable, if its true of them!" Elizabeth had cried hotly. "You can't believe such a low-down thing of Horace, when he's so devoted!" - Horace's wife laid down her embroidery and laughed outright. "Are you really twenty-five, or are you seventeen? Why do you suppose Horace Is so devoted to me? Simply because he thinks I'm a pretty little silly who couldn't draw the breath of life if he didn't show me how. -'As for its being despicable, what's the use of calling names? You've got to take things as 'they are, and if you want to like men, dont expect too much of them." She embroidered for a moment Jn silence, and then earnestly and unemotionally summed up her doc trine, "When men take for granted women are idiots and don't know-enough to come in when it rains, dont Tesent it. Learn to like it!" At this point one of the babies had cried and Dolly's words of wisdom had stopped." But they had gone on resounding portentously In her sister's ears. Even now the rumbling of the train made an accompaniment to the refrain, 'Don't resent it learn to like it!" and Elizabeth reviewed her life under the new light of this sphorism. It certainly explained a great number of things she had not un derstood before. One incident after another came to her as illustrating the truth of what she had denied so hotly to Dolly. She thought of the women her Platonic, men-friends (she had never known any other variety) khad married, and of their attitude towards their husbands; she--thought of girls who had been debutantes when she was and who were stilL spinsters, and recognized in them the same qualities of competent, business-like capacity to take care of themselves and run their own lives of which she was so proud in herself; and finally she thought of the very last incident that had happened. How exasperating she had found Uncle's -Henry's belittling care of her, and yet how hurt he had looked when she resented it! She supposed Dolly would have looked pathetically anxious, would have hungon.hls words, made him repeat his directions and sent him away full of happy importance; and then would promptly have forgotten all about him, and asked the trainman if she had needed any in formation. A rustic bride and groom occupied the seat In front of her, but she had hardly taken in the signi ficance of their .self-conscious laughter and. whis pered remarks, before the train began to slow Jerk ily down. The man asked the conductor If they were approaching Hoosac Junction and if they needed to change cars there. 'Upon receiving the answer he turned to his -wife and said, quite as If she were deaf and had not heard a remark ad dressed to them both. "We're almost at Hoosac Junction and we have to change cars, there, so get on your wraps." In spite of her depression Eliza beth smiled at the Importance of his manner. She wucv o uuwn ue aisle as though she were Diina, cai Zoning her volubly against obstacles inai sne could not but see a- wii ua not but se . w.n as fce." As he ran down the steps ahead of hr , . stumbled and fen headlong, his cheap cpat splitting Tjp the back and showing a bright pink shirt With out noticing this he, scramDiea to his feet and called, Dont try. to come down till Pm there to help you. At this Elizabeth laughed aloud. . "The eternal masculine!" she said to herself. "He made such a good Job of getting down himself he's surehe can help somebody else." Through her laughter, how ever, she noticed with what an Instinctive art, the raw country-girl adapted herself to the man's point 1 of view, allowed her. vigorous . young body to be guided cautiously down the steps, and up on the station platform as though she were an infirm old woman, and how she smiled gratefully at the man who had piloted her so safely, through this danger ' ous expedition. Elizabeth labeled the man's answering -adoring gaze "offensively patronizing, but there was some thing else in it which had never been in any gaze directed on her, and her smile died away. It oc curred to her uncomfortably that she might really know less about the problems as being those of mean and petty artifices, and of life itself as an ignoble affair; and reflected with some bitterness that undoubtedly Dolfy would call that "looking at things as they really were." Afterwards, in meditating) on the matter, she con cluded ihat this was the" turning, point; that, over come asf by a last straw by the unspeakable dreari ness of Hoosac Junction, -she then and there came to her momentous decision; but at the time she ''was aware only of a general sinking of the heart and a forlorn desolation. She wished heartily that her visit in the mountains were over and "She were on her way back to Albany. When the train to Manchester appeared she climbed wearily in, drop ped into the first seat, and took a perverse pleas ure in not looking out at the mountains as they be gan to shoulder themselves up above the horizon. Dolly had once said of her that for sudden pitch black fits of melancholy nobody could equal a per son like Elizabeth who laughed a great deal. The moody traveller Ignored' the people in the car as she ignored the lovely Bummer landscape, so that she was quite surprised that evening when her neighbor at dinner began the conversation by saying. "You may think I'm a stranger to you, but I'm not. I sat across the aisle, from you and stared ' at you all the way from Hoosac Junction up here." . He spoke with a gay effrontery which carried no offence, and waited for her answer to strike the key note of their acquaintance. "I'm afraid I wasn't a cheerful object for contem plation." began Elizabeth with her pleasant imper sonal laugh. "I was. feeling horribly blue and de pressed, and wondering f " She was again startled to hear a quaver in her voice, and -stopped, flushing at the Idea of telling a stranger what had been depressing her on that Journey j The young man evidently considered that the key note of sentimentality, had been struck and -joined the harmony at once by leaning towards her impul sively and saying In a low, Intimate tone, "I saw you looked unhappy and frightened. It made me want to take care of you." These last, words resounded loudly in Elizabeth's ears. Perhaps Dolly was right. ' She glanced up and down the table. Nobody knew her except her host ess, who was desperately pre-occupde'd with the cares of a Targe house-party. Her visit In Manchester opened before her like a clean white sheet oh which. , she could write herself down as any character she chose without fear of detection. She looked again at her companion, who, preserving the most discreet of expectant silences persuaded her dumbly to confi dence, with softly inviting dark eyes. She drew a long breath and made the plunge. As she brushed her hair before her mirror that night, she laughed Inextinguishably at the recollec tion of the rest of the evening, but she was half frightened, nevertheless, at the ease with whlchNthe plunge once taken, she had sailed away. upon un known and, to her, wholly uncharted seas. She tried to imagine Uncle Henry's face If he had heard her dilating upon the terrors of a solitary journey, and ending with a pathetic, "I know it's foolish to be so - sensitive, but I can't help It. I'm so dependent upon others care!" The impetus of her start had carried them both along to an intimate discussion of the real nature of v women,, in which Elizabeth, summoning Dolly's mocking spirit -to her aid, had proclaimed the sex ' as universally a clinging vine, and herself the frail est of its tendrils. She woke up in the night and even wnlle she shivered nervously at the thought of where she might end if she continued to Joke, she laughed aloud at the vision of herself masquerading in that guise. She put her fear resplutely out of her mind. The irresponsibility of transient relationships both dazzled and reassured her. She would never meet any of these people again she told herself, and never In the world would she have suoh an oppor tunity to see if Dolly was right! ' -Morning light brought no reaction from her reso lution and after breakfast she sat in the library, with Paul Mortimer, her last night's dinner partner, leaning over her shoulder, instructing her how to use a check-book. (She had brought a new one down stairs for the purpose). "Do I sign here?" she asked, "or is it the date that goes on that line? I never can remember!" Hera she sighed prettily over the complications of busi ness life, and, "Oh, my goodness! Do I have to do it all over again on the 'stub as you call it; what a funny name ! And now, which do I get the money from, the check or the stub?" : .At the end of this extraordinary speech she joined - Mortimer's pitying laugh at her impracticality. with . a wild whoop ? of merriment whose almost hysterical . she feared would betray her. She, who genuineness had run her widowed father's household ever since she was a little girl, to be asking where to sign a check!. " . - v v.,.- After this Important business transaction was com-; pleted, Mortimer proposed showing her around the golf-course. As long arjBhe lives Elizabeth 'will never forget that morning of instruction In the art or goir. Burying deep in oblivion the three silver she. n- m If wholly over to uo"'8 inspiration, and. under the Iototm July "sne Plared the fool," as she told herself mn. Pently, "like a born clown." She exclaimed over the cunning little holes In the putting' greens- ha nvarlably tried to drive off with her pStSgToV l! leglng that all those .ticks looked Just alike toher- her deUghbover some duckliirs paSSUrs la a rorir and she ended her performance by picking up the ball and throwing it with a charming petulance and a highly inaccurate aim in the general direction of the club-house, observing with a laugh that she had had enough for the morning and that .that was a J much more sensible way to get' the ball over tie ground than to poke at it with sticks! They raced each other homel and arrived flushed and laughing. "I haven't had such a jolly time in - years!" Mortimer told her at luncheon. "Nor I," she assured him. "I didn't know golf could be so much fun. It is all because you're so patient with stupid me!" ' . "Its all because you're so sunny and inspiriting. Its a revelation of temperament " he answered with an accent which was new in Elizabeth's experience of masculine conversation. , After luncheon their hostess sent them to drive to the next village on an errand, and here Elizabeth's courage failed a little. She had enjoyed the morning as she would have enjoyed a rattling farce at a theatre, but She had no such passion for golf as for horses, and besides, Mortimer played excellent golf , and he did not drive well. He said frankly that he didn't know much about it, but he undertook with 4 ready confidence to teach her her! Elizabeth For tescue, the only one in the family who could sub due Black Lightning when he grew fractious. Morti . mer showed her how. to hold the reins and showed her wrong.- He iarfdjed the big high stepping bay " in just the worst way to get speed out of him, and . he all but took a piece out of the hub as they turned up the driveway on their way home. At dinner Elizabeth was tired but with repression and inclined to throw up. her whole campaign, but . the irresistibly comic delights of being instructed an entire evening in the, very elementary elements of bridge sent her to bed flushed with inward laugh ter and vaguely soothed by an , emotion she did not recognize. She wondered if her hostess had noticed with disapproval that she had spent the entire day with the same man. The next morning that care-worn lady relieved the girl's mind on the subject "I am so glad you are "DO I SIGN HERE?" SHE .ASKED. taking care of Paul Mortimer so. beautifully for me." ue biuu, graieiuuy; "Ws so difficult as a rule entvllke. most glrls, youknow. And yet such a f DlendId catchT But he Js so hard to entertain and omiort to nave him off my mind."- And v C8v dismissed not only Mortimer but EUzabeth from the number of her responsibill- eiW 7rf left to a tete-a-tete almost as un interrupted as If they had been on shipboards ..et'8 "lf-possession and clear purpose last ed about five days and thn .t,- X.,," j S il-t .allo8t her h9 completely. She did Tint Vnn. v --- -r- to cept that Jher brainhirled shriei Z v7. " T . . WM Qoing or what was happening when she tried w na that all h 4- ESS, Pnl Mortimer, ardent face ,m. f.!5r ometime. looked at her- tWh Am startled excitement a. SSiffJS?! if entire stranger, mo character ?M Plf 5in ,emed almost her r-, f4 rnot,ca117 rcxt!ve an InSu- j -3 x.crtrjer. ccrTtlea cf tm .' - He took for granted so unquestionlngly that she was incapable of conducting the smallest operation In life: that she found herself hesitating in genuine doubt before processes that wero-as familiar to her as eating her dinner. She stepped backhand watched ' him tear down, a rail fence for her to pass' with as complete a c momentary unconsciousness of her ca pacity to swing -herself lightly over it as though her ' fornler self were hat.o a previous ' existence. She accepted without even repressed resentment his anxious comfortings during a thunder-storm, she listened , docilely to-a,, b, c, explanations of political - matters she let -herself be helped over tiny brooks, calmly she heard 'him explain quite incorrectly the workings of their host's automobile, she ' drank in elementary lectures on history; " all ; with an ease which made her say to herself. vaguely, f If he should " : ifvI did why, perhaps I might be able to keep it up the way Dolly doe." In general, however, she was Incapable of making even so rudimentary' a reflection on her situation. She had told herself at first, that just foronce she would let herself go; and now sho realized with a startled quickening of her blood that she had gone far beyond her own control. . She- still laughed a great deal, but It was generally an excited, unsteady mirth.. Once in a while it seemed to iier that Morti mers answering laugh l ad something of the same agitation in it, and as the. time for his departure drew near, she grew mo re and more sure of it It comforted her own scarec confusion to know that he was perturbed, and on his last afternoon, as they -were -driving together, dt steadied her newes to feel his so electrically throbbing. She filled In the long silences by saying to herself, "Its coming its coming," and when Paul began to speak, she knew by the sound of his .voice before, she understood a word, that It had come. He said, halting and hesitating, "I can't think of anything else but that I'm going away to-morrow, I don't know when I'll ever see you again, if I don't say now and then with a. rush, "Oh, Betty, do I need to say it don't you know without my" His voice failed him and there was another silence. Elizabeth looked down, watching the road stream past under the . rapid wheels.- Deep somewhere in her body a little pulse began to tick as if presaging a faster beating xf her heart at his next words. She , glanced up qufckly, struck by his silence, and was moved to pity by the acutely miserable look on his face. She wished she could reassure liim, let him know that he need not fear a. repulse; perhaps she. should answer now and not wait for The'big bay snorted and shied at a piece. of paper in the "road. Before Paul could shift the reins for a closer,1 hold, a gust of wind flapped the; paper across the horse's knees and he reared suddenly with a wild snort of terror. The check-line broke,, snapped forwards and struck - him a . sharp . blow across the nose. . Elizabeth had just time-to grasp one side of the dog-cart as the frightened animal came down from his plunge and leaped forward in great bounds which flung the cart furiously from side to side. , . The. shock drove everything out of her mind bufi ber trained instinct for horsemanship, and as she looked quickly at her companion it was with an impersonal resentment for incompetence that she saw in her face that he was not. master of the situa tion. He was very pale, his jaw set determinedly, , but itwas evident that he felt how hopelessly inef fectual was his steady,; unskillful pull on the reing. He was using only hia brute strength against ther horse and the big animal had more brute strength, than he. 0: V ' " A turn In the road was almost upon fhem, and as they reached it, Elizabeth felt something Inside ben give way with a .nap. A dizzy frenzy whirled upon ber, and when she realized again what .be wa do ing, the rein, were in ber hands, she wa. using the quick, sidelong jerk, with which .he had conquered Black Lightning so tttanr time., and the big bay wa under, control. Even before .be noted these material facts she was awafe of a strange ware of emotion which .urged up, hammering, into ber brain. It was Joy. clear, primitive, unrercttlsg Joy, to be terse!! rr-!3 to ts r-Ir.i fr- and strength. the horse's head, with every skilful torn Vn obstacle in-their-headlong7 career 2? Sj??" shouted -in exultation. Ul(i "Give me those reins!" She did not recognize the Voice at all 8n fl resentful was it, nor the angry eyes into whie"? looked. For an instant she had forgotten was not alone with the horse bounding and quivering, but unmistakably ed, and Elizabeth handed the reins over to v , without a word. . er t0 Indeed, she could not think of a word U 6av the affair had been complicated befo-e wherp they now. she asked herslf. Paul breathed he5 for a time, evidently not trusting himself to 5 Then he began severely, "If yOU-cf course youZ realize what a very, very foolish" thing that wa m! you'aifyOU V6ry 1UUe mre abourse, Elizabeth fairly bounded in her seat! "If I vn a little more about horses! When I know a rJ? sand times more than " tt" A sudden realization that the incident meant mn- than a Htennta niro. A -J,. . M0'8 ""6, came upon ner startlln?. ly. It flashed through rinr mfn4 f i. o , 0 iuu ii meant everr. thing meant that she physically couldn't "keep it up"; and that vision almost drove out of her memory the affair of the run-away. All that she had been suppressing the last fortnight boiled over in inw. herent words. . "Oh, I know it was awful manners, but I'm not sor ry I can't be! It has saved me it has saved you It has opened my eyes! I can't keep it up notiinj in the world is worth having to pretend all your life! I'm not helpless and dependent I hate if I'd rather do anything than pretend to be even to please you. If you can't like me the way I am-lf men are such " . She was so excited thaf she did not know what she was saying. The man cut her short with, "la Heaven's name what are you talking about?" The anger In his face was .erased by a blankness that amounted to stupefaction. Before this entirely Jo. personal and stern visage, Elizabeth was suddenly aware of the -immense distance which separated them from the sentimental crisis of a few momenti before. Her overstrained nerves gave way as never 'before in her life. She began, to cry. very violently like a frightened child. ' But even through her ;sobs she began travel m explain. - The big bayy tired and broken, had settled down to,! a sleepy walk before she had faltered through her miserable and . endless story. She did mot spare Jierself,. she did not try to appeal to his pity, and she ended, "Oh, I've been horrible all through! , I've' deceived you With every word I've said till 'now. There Isn't a tSing I've pretended I couldn't 'do and you've helped me with, that I can't do well and like to. and " like to ! " Her last words were spoken defiantly, and she faced him with a flash of spirit in her unhappy eyes. It was the first tin$e she had looked at hhn since she began, to talk-and her heart sank to see how white and severe he 'looked. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed as she paused, and after a moment, "Good Heavens!" : It seemed to her that he was moved to an emotion she did -not understand, as though her confession had had some singular effect on him quite different from what she imagined. , "Well, now at least you know the worst of me!" she said, desperately, to break the silence. He roused himself from his stupor of amazement "Yes, I know the worst of you," he said uncomprom isingly; "but you don't begin to know the worst ol me,' nor what might have been the horrible worst ol the whole thing. Lord Almighty!" he fell again intc ejaculations, "Lord Almighty! What an escape we've had ! It makes me sick to think of It! Look here- Its the last thing a man would usually tel! a womas. and its awfully-discreditable to nie--but you've been honest we're striking bed rock you ought to know. Just before, the horse ran away you remember,'! had said- He hesitated, flushed and ashamed. "Yes, I remember," the girl prompted him softly. . "Well, the only possible excuse I 'hjive is that I've been 'fighting with all my might to keep from falBnj in love with you with the girl I thought you were." He drew a long breath and summoned all his resols tion to go on, "Oh you cant-understand what a ter ror I've always had of losing my head over a brain less, pretty, childish, helpless girl, and having he: bang like a mill-stone on me all my life. I've seen so much of that sort of inferno in the life ct BJ friends. Well, I thought this time I had done it 1 couldn't stop myself before I had said but I ate I'd said that much, I felt it would mean life-long oi . ery If X went on." .Elizabeth heard tt loud roaring in her ears acu looked so blank that Paul hurried on to have tho wretched thing over, "I was going to back out!" He brought it out finally with the honest bluntness 0! despair. ' "I was going to sneak out by the lo. meant pretext tha I hadn't really proposed. Can you ever respect a man who had meant to do sue a thing?" The two faced -each other, tragic in the deatWT seriousness with which youth takes itself. ' Tho girl spoke first, i "You say you don't like that kind of a girl?" . "Good Lord, no! ' No sane man does. What under . the sun is there to like about having to prevent a woman from making a fool of 'hersejf every time 1 she tries to do any " Sho flared up at him in an unreasonable s8er Her heat showed the immensity of her relief. "Then, Vwhy in Heaven's name did you pretend you didT He-answered quite simply, "Why, because that was the kind of girl you seemed to be!" EUzabeth cried out upon him, 'But I was on ff trying to please you!" For a moment neither of them took in the &t?9 significance of these confessions. They loo1 speechless into each other's bewildered eyes. Then. "Oh, my dear," cried the man, "don't you see ww nas Happened! it means we ve iauen ju each other as never two people before, that we for each other a. we really are, not, not as we -How do . we know, what we really are. If 'T' done nothing but lie to each other!" asked with an impatient self-scorn, t le wa. unshaken in his Joyous and triani interpretationof it alL "A if it made any o,ffe" what people do! Its whit they are-nndem, "But you haven't any idea what I am, undent She appealed desperately to be contradicted. , llaren't I?be reaured ber tenderly; a 3 rWefl, I mean to find out! Ill telegrapn that I'm not oin back to-morrow. I t tart my vacationand everythlafi else r -. "'.T;lZ.n ,
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
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March 20, 1909, edition 1
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