TUB PKE: OMAHA. SUNDAY. FKKKUAKY 10, 1122.
5-n
"1 i j.-; j)r A
fif
" V- - XX I A
ove-m-&r
Heaslip Lea
Gouamer Thread of Old Romance
and New Weave Some Surprising
Changes in Three Lives.
fttllKlifc. certain oil f.uhlonfd flower
I called Une-nt-e MlM. It kuccii Vietorl
aiitrin, crinoline, gift book and chignons
uung women given lo dying of broken liesrt
and )oum men hauditomely given 10 condoling
tiieinprs ihTrnfLr.
Ami ! ijne-in-aMim! Wh-n waa love
lit! nilet? lawn or mlaanilc. Some mlata, of
ourc, melt away bifoi the nun: aom don't.
11 ua nm crowd t ha metaphor. Tska the story
i.f Ameh Lawrence. InMrml there. If you like.
U h modern Iiim.ui. e.
When Anxilc vim twenty lilclt tuy lme
been no Brent thakea of n hbo a generation or
so a it. but Im now he t into when one alts among
the prniln ti, die promtxed one night, standing
hrneath u linncy locimt In full flower, to marry
Arthur Wicrwood. ,
Not at once, of courso; Arthur was nt tlmt
lime only Just out of tit li and In no porlllon to
marry anl.d. II had worked way
through (ilf MitrrKlns therefore compara
lively lute twctity-tlve or so ami hla aolo for
tune cotiKtHie,) ,f three modeat Liberty honda,
a fat gold watch which had belonged to hla
grandfather and would probably belong to hla
grandson, and two hundred and fifteen dollars.
(.Strang, the odd oenls which always disfigure
oo a bank account however )
Artnur asked Amelia to marry him. and be
neath th honey locust, Iter little uptllted (me
inla aa the dronping flower, her dark eyes lnn
cunroua, Amelle mi Id she would. It should not
have been used against her, for It was not a
night on which any girl could easily have re
fused any man except a tuttooed South Sea
IxlHtider. Hut Arthur took tho moment seii
otialy. lie held her clime and kissed her fum
bllnaly at first, but much better the third and
fourth time. Ilia voice grew husky: his hand
shook. At which, of course, Ainelle'a hand
shook, too. Arthur was distinctly good looking
In a straight featured, fair, solemn way. Alto,
he waa tall, and Amelle experienced the most
ilelieieus thrill when he stooped above her. The
aame thrill, tio doubt, which In the botanic
world leads a roue veined, azure throated morn
ing glory to atreich up Ha tendrlla to clasp the
honest fence.
"Darling." said Arthur (there are two kinds
of lovers those who ay darling seriously and
those who put a laugh In it Arthur was not
the latter. Ilia "darling" had already a delicate
aura, of coffee, bacon, and eggs). "Darling it
will have to be a long engagement, I'm afraid
do you mind?"
What could a nice girl have said if she did?
"No truly, Arthur " said Amelie, dore
against his cheek.
"I shall have to make good for you!" he
told her.
Making good and a square deal were among
Arthur's clinches, lie was the sort of young
man to whom politicians refer as the backbone,
of the country or the salt of the earth. Really,
it needs no language but English to describe
him. Hut hist chin was wonderful.
Smooth shaven, of course, as perfect In line
mid contour as the chin of a statue. Women
take great stock In chins. Amelle looked at
Arthur's, and throbbed with pride. She reflected
happily that he hud a nice taste in collars Of
course,, one inay marry a man to reform him,
but It's nicer not to have to.
"You see," Arthur was saying, "this offer
I've had from those people in Mexico means a
comfortable living, but not at once. It may be
a year, even two years, darling!"
"I'll wait for you, honey," murmured Amelie.
"And when I write you you'll come?"
"O, Arthur way down there?"
, "Darling we'll have to live way down there,
for a while at least. If things turn out as I hope
they will. You'd like it. I'm sure you would.
You're such a romantic little girl " Here he
tightened a strong arm, and Amelle sighed hap
pily. "You'd be sure to like it; palms and lots
of flowers and patios and fountains an er
palms!" said Arthur.
"I do love Spanish stuff," mused Amelie
"I always have that sort of catch in the mtsio
as If your heart missed a beat or something
because you saw somebody coming. And the
big carvetl combs and mantillas O. Arthur,
will you send me a Spanish fan? They're go
ing to be smart next winter."
Arthur said he would. He wasn't entirely
clear as to the puro Castillianness. so to speak,
of Mexico, but it was bound to be something
like that. And the scent of the honey locust
was potent as old wine.
"Only " said Amelie, doubtfully "only
Arthur, honey I couldn't go all the way there,
you know I really don't think I could. It
seems so sort of conspicuous. Why couldn't
you come up instead and meet me somewhero
halfway?"
"Darling," said Arthur, "do you know, I can
see how you feel, absolutely, and I love you for
it. Let's see, now. There must be some place
in between some place I could come up to."
"And that I could go down to," cooed Amelie.
There was. There always is. Even between
heaven and hell, as lovers a-plenty had charted
it before these two.
"I've got It," said Arthur at last. "Riverside
a llttlo town In California. I was out there
one summer. It's a nice place, with rather a
wonderful inn Spanish. Now, Amelie here it
is! At the end of two years "
"Or less. If possible," whispered Amelie.
"Absolutely," said Arthur "however, at the
end of two years at the outside I will come to
Riverside you will meet me there and we
will be married! Is it a bargain!"
"Say 'Is It a promise?' " she corrected
sweetly.
He obeyed her. She gave her word. They'
kissed each other with a touch of delicious
drama. A flower of the honey locust fell and
caught in her hair. He disentangled it gently,
put it to his lips, and bestowed it in his pocket
book. "O, Amelie, darling," he groaned, "two whole
years "
"Or less, if possible," said Amelie consol
ingly. But she was just as beautifully distressed as
he. They stayed out in the yard till midnight,
when Arthur's well bred conscience drove him
home, seeking in each other's arms and eyes and
lips the frail assurance that journey's end means
one thing only.
"I shall never forget this evening," said
Arthur just before he left her.
"Say night sighed Amelie whimsically
"it's a so much more loverly word!" .
She cried herself to sleep when he had gone.
He was really her first definite suitor. And the
sincerity of his lovemaking had set her heart
strings singing like a wind harp.
- Arthur himself slept little. Across the
sleeping town they wore a web of rosy fancies,
from his heart to hers.
One week later Arthur departed for Mexico.
A week is not a long time in which to be
engaged. It allows for all of the thrill and none
of the anticlimax. Amelie and Arthur achieved
In those seven days a pretty cycle of devotion.
They accepted congratulations Arthur was for
shouting his news from the housetops at once
in a sort of lovely haze, and clung to each other
as the time for parting drew near in a noble
agony of renunciation.
"We'll have our honeymoon at the inn in
California, two years from, now," was Arthur's
ulinii.iiv Kuodbv. pruiuiM' iht noituugnoili
ing in this world shall keep you from coming U
me, darling:'
Amelia proinli.ed. In (ears, Arthur realty
extraordinarily good looking, with th4t steady
ti.imt In his An gray eyes, Hhe flung herself
Into his arms and sobbed wildly.
"It's killing ins to let you go"
Hut It didn't kill Iter, of rourae.
Fhe sat shout .the tiouie snd moped patheti
cally for s full month after his departure, then
gradually drifted out into the current again and
buck Into something Ilk her old routine.
Nothing exactly ss It n before, of couue
- for ono thing, Arthur's ardent announcement
of their engagement had set her a little outaids
the gayeties of li'r old crowd, Mm titld, "Ame
lia Lawrence? O. yes! Plies engagej to Fher
liood going to bo married as soon as he can g'l
a start." and neglected to sk Amelle to dance.
Hie felt U, rat Ik r wistfully, at flrM; cite hud not
iulto meant to put her youth in pawn when
Arthur left, but that apparently was what she
hud done. Neither matron nor debutante
neither fish. Ilfth. nor good red herring!
Still Arthur wrote devotedly. Jure at nt
every day. later on with a faithful regulatiiy
three times a week; and the fed her soul on th
irpeated expression of his love, his loneliness
without her. Ins continual longing for her.
"I'm making good,'! he wrote toward th
end of the first year. "The two years we et
wilt Just about see it. Then we can have a hit:
t T A A &i HI VVJ'f ft
BW SH W a i rr , . m . w - - M kakfr W r V" Wat M W s I I
house on the side of the mountain, with vines
growing about the door."
The old, old dream, whose background has
been usually a far country but not always
Mexico.
Amelie read with a smile tipping up the cor
ners of her sensitive mouth and one eye on the
honey locust. It took a deal of concentration
sometimes to evoke the magic of that brief,
glamorous hour. Sometimes she found it hard
even to visualize Arthur's frank, kindly face.
But she focused the eyes of her soul on it deter
minedly. She had only to wait love and be
true!
That winter her father died, suddenly, with
out a shadow of warning, and Amelie found
herself and her mother, when the dead man's
affairs were finally settled, facing the world
with only a small insurance policy between them
and outright penury.
She announced, with a courage that sur
prised herself: "I'm going to find a job some
whore. I ought to have been doing something
long afo."
"Do call it a position, my child!" wailed her
mother out of a fog of crepe.
"Wait till we see what I can get," said Ame
lie. Shs smiled her rather plaintive smile.-Black
clothes made a pale small wraith of her, but her
spirit shot up like a candle flame in the wind.
She found a place ultimately in a combina
tion book and art shop of which Beechwood was
justly proud. Books she had always loved in a
haphazard, omnivorous way; pictures she pro
ceeded eagerly to learn about.
Arthur's epistolary protest was prompt and
earnest:
"I don't like the idea of your being in a
store. I am working harder than ever, with
an eye to the day when I can take you out of
it and set you in our little house, where you
shall have nothing to do but be my little wife."
"And sweep floors." thought Amelie per
versely, "and wash dishes, and mend socks."
She turned back to her beloved job. Like a new
world, the goods on the shelves about her opened
a thousand vistas. Her awakening intelligence
nearly foundered itself, trying to drink the
stream dry. She realized for the first time what
color and line might mean; her finger tips
lingered happily over silken fabric and tissues
crusted with embroidery; She was like a new
creature, vibrant and exquisitely responsive. She
tried to write Arthur something of her evolu
tion. He replied with characteristic consideration:
"Are you sure you aren't overworking, dar
ling? You sound so excited. . I don't want my
little girl wearing herself out. I have a piece
of news for you that may make you forget the
store, for once. I am getting a raise this month.
One more like it and all our hopes can come
true. Isn't that wonderful? I wish I could see
yout face when you read this!"
Amelie read it, standing beside a box of new
prints that had just come in,' colorful things,
French and English, with an occasional spirited
bit of black and white among them. When she
had done reading she lifted her eyes to a frivo
lous gilt framed mirror on the opposite wall of
the shop.
She saw a small, pale face with a touch of
delicate rose on the cheeks; cloudy dark bair,
artistically loose (Arthur loved it sleek and net
ted); a mouth touched with mockery eyes full
of dreams, but the ecstatic happiness which
Arthur would have liked to be able to watch
the mirror did not give back.
"What's the matter with you?" cried Amelle
to herself amazedly. "What have you been
waiting for all this time?"
She tucked the letter inside her soft gray
frock and turned away humming "Annie
Laurie." but a psycho-analyst, from whom none
of us is quite safe nowadays, would have ob
served that she had first to stop and consciously
" wouldn't gtP tonight for tho rest of my life. This place and
that Song and yoa."
recall that it; was Arthur's favorite tune. Then
she flatted it.
She wished sometimes that Arthur's letters
had more of Arthur himself. How many a
woman has wished that before her, of stolid,
businesslike masculine script! One remembers
a moment of beautiful madness a husky mas
culine voice, breaking with tenderness eyes
that burn a hole in one's soul, and the postman
obliges next day or next week, with a chilly
crackling sheet of paper beginning clumsily:
"My Dearest M. or N.: I am sitting down to
write to you after a busy day. I know you will
be glad to hear that I found the place Okeh
and everything ready for me to take hold."
It isn't quite what one would be glad to hear,
of course; however, the average man makes but
inadequate love with a pen. Which probably
saves him a good deal of trouble, at that.
Arthur, in any case, was no knight of the
quill. He said what he had to say definitely and
on time, added the customary number of darl
ings and little girls, and called it a day.
"He takes me just as much for granted as if
I were his collar button!" Amelie thought re
belliously. She thought of the honey locust, but
with the passing of two years, the honey locust
grew vague somehow, like a tree in a lovely
stage setting, hung with artificial garlands. It
still stood in Amelia's yard, two springs it flow
ered heartlessly without Arthur; but its magic
waned. It was now, at best, a tree. A little
stereotyped, like the letters, which . were now
all Amelie had of her great moment.
Toward the end of the second year, Amelie's
mother remarried.
That was a distinct blow to Amelie, who had
not even een it coming. She knew the man
had been an old suitor of her mother's, knew
that he sometimes came to the house, knew that
he seemed to care, in a stolid, inarticulate sort
of way but marriage with Amelie's father so
new a ghost! With the crepe veil and black kid
gloves so lately put away! '
Amelie was hurt. She was affronted. She
quivered with disgust the fastidious unreason
ing disgust of youth for middle aged ardors. '
The stepfather had been some years a wid
ower and possessed already of a tidy family.
When Amelie thought of his grizzled mustache
and neat alpaca coat, of his grown daughter's
shrill. Inane laughter, and the deviltries of his
two small freckled sons, she felt as if cuckoos
had crowded her out of her nest
She stayed late at the shop and came home
with reluctance to her place at the noisy din
ner table over which her mother now presided.
Mrs. Lawrence, Mrs. Lawrence no longer,
torn between old ties and new, offered the ob
vious solution when Amelie's unrest became ap
parent. "Anyhow," she protested pathetically, "you'd
be leaving; me, sooner or later, to get married
yourself, you know, you and Arthur."
It made Amelie turn with a desperate de
pendence to Arthur's letters, which just about
that time displayed a renaissance of ardor, as
if in answer to her need.
"The time's almost up," he wrote.. "I'm due
another raise in a month and as soon as I get
it I'll wire you. Then you will start west to
meet me, darling! Riverside, Cal. remember?
Take the California limited that's the best
train get off at San Bernardino and drive over
to the inn. I'll be wraiting for you, there. 1
wonder If we will find each other at all changed.
I am sure you will be the same dear, little girl.
As fer me, I am what I have always been, your
faithful old sweetheart. It's been a hard two
years, but we'll forget all that once we're to
gether again. A man has temptations" (he had
blacked something out there and gone on
again), "a lot of temptations a sheltered little
girl like you knows nothing about but I've
, kept your picture on my desk and your promise
in my mind and here we are, almost out of
the wood! When I wire, be ready to start. It
might be any day now."
Amelie was distinctly moved by that letter.
She went out and bought herself a gray coat
and skirt to travel in, also some demurely smart
blouses and an engaging little gray hat. She
added other things, a small but dainty trous
seau, then held her hands and waited for Ar
thur's wire to come.
Her road to Rome, as it were. Her key to
the garden of the world.
It troubled her a bit, nevertheless, that even
Arthur's photograph could not make real for
her now his eyes and mouth. She had lost her
power to visualize him, completely. "I feel as
if he were almost strange," she told her moth
er in a moment of insistent misgiving. "It's so
hard to keep it all real over two years and
he" (a flare of nervous shyness) "he seems so
sure and so so" (she stumbled over a reti
cent word) "so affectionate."
"It'll be all right," said her mother com
fortingly. "Arthur's a good boy. Just you be
as faithful as he is."
That really seemed to cover everything, that
last homely bit of advice. s.
When Arthur's wire eventually came Amelie
packed her trunk, gave up her position in the
little bookshop, and climbed aboard the Cali
fornia limited with a sense of high fulfillment
"if a most irregular pulse.
Arthur had said merely.' "Meet me Mission
Inn Riverside June Fifteenth love."
Not a lengthy slogan at the sound of which
to tear up one's life by the roots, but Amelle
responded gallantly. She said goodby to the
' locust tree the night before she left with a
' vague feeling that she who was sbout to die
rilultd it. The bvukt !( was blooming but
Mifefarfiy Ih! 'r. It Uropfdl im suu'iou
blotsoms on h.-r Imir.
Approaches now the dintn t.(ul sint proble-mm,-
rt of the story of Aniflie I-awreiKe,
nh Ui't iiono io wrll iht fiit nig lit. a
might luv been tiptrtd, n Ut- tit nt
lnornnih hrfd a, lower berth-and deeded
and made her way out t the dining rar, A
negro waiter rams forward la meet her, 1 la
mno either stupid or an uncommonly civfr
' ntature, Ho edited Amrlip at 4 stiittll pot
e table mi which ktlver and sla and china
glittered brightly In Ilia raa ot the I o'clock
sun, snd presented her with menu. Jut
across th small spotlens laid t a man read
ing a hook and waiting apparently fr hi break
fait. In th fact of him lay the stupidity or un
common lievenir of tha waiter.
Oiiitiid the window tha Kanwi lindawnpe
t re lined by. naked aa 1 1 ml bad made It, yet
with a certain flat frenline.a about It.
Amelia wrote upon her order hp:
Oranii Juice, coffee, rolls,
Hut aha nearly set down htr atnrilrd sub
roiiictoiis cry, "Oh. Amelle. my child. What
man! II louldii t poaxibty be as wonderful as he
looks."
riie shouldn't liae reoponded to th" won
derf ultima of htm, of cnume. but alio did In an
odd sort of way. with Arthur looming alwaja
in th bm k of her mind.
I "or ono thing he, the man acroMi tho table,
looked like tho direct lineal descendant of cabal
leros and hidalgos, Ilia dark eyca were full of
a melancholy nmiiKenieut. lie had dark, smooth
hair and a small sophixtlcHted dark muxtiicli.
In another day he would ha worn ruffles nt
the wrist snd carried a rapier. As It was, hi
tiothra were good, not too new, and ho wore a
black opal In a diirk knitted tic. His hsnda.
holding th book, which Amelle made out by
indirect Indy-liko glances to be a play of Henii
vente's, w ere slim and brow n and lncoi uotisly
airong looking. They gave her, thoie hands,
merely In looking at them, a faint wnrnimt
thrill, which site could not help but feel to be
illicit.
In the mid.-t of her musings lie looked at
ber and spoke, in a voice that could have be
longed to no other man that Amelle had ever
met.
Of course, he only suid. "May I have the
sugar?" (His grapefruit had arrived.) Hut
that voice! It was tragically beautiful. Full
of whimsical Inflections and deep velvety under
tones. The voice of Harlequin, rhyming the
moon In an old garden, among foNglovea and
roses, where fountains played but languidly
and one time gods and goddesses stood for
mally about, their marble limb gleaming pale
ly agalnM the masked dark green of laurel and
rhododendron.
Amelie gave him the tsugar bowl, smiling
faintlj. Not in the least beyond the degree
prescribed by convention for ladles traveling
alone.
"It'a a delightful morning," he assured her
gravely. There was an undoubtedly humorous
glint in the deep dark eyes.
"A little warm, I think," said Amelle primly.
"I like It warm," he said, as if that obviously
affoeted tho thing.
"But not too warm." aid Amelie.
To herself she cried In scorn. "He'll think
you're a hopeless prig. Do behave as if you'd
talked to a man without an introduction be
fore." As a matter of fact she never had,
which glamored the whole affair and put her
at a disadvantage.
She shut her tepth, took a deep breath,
wiped what Arthur would think of her out of
consideration, and said sweetly:
"Do tell mo what that is you're reading.
I've been dying of curiously."
He held it up for her to see with a sudden
and charming smil1.
"'Autumnal rinses,' by Jacinto Benavente.
Do you kn'nv him?"
"Xo it's good?" said Amelie eagerly.
"It dibtinctly isn't. Although I hoped it
would be. Are you ever violently disappointed
in books you take on trains with you? It mat
ters so much more, then you're so helpless.
You can't trot an entire library about. I sup
pose one should rely on Shakespeare and the
Bible. But fancy either one of 'em In an ob
servation car. It doesn't sejin decent somehow.
What do you read?"
She could see ho was really interested in
what she read and answered with a touch of
shyness:
"I've got two this time." fshe was glad he
couldn't possibly know she had never been two
whole days on a train before in her narrow
little life). "The Way of All Flesh and in case
I shouldn't like that, 'The Book of a Hundred
Houses'."
"You must be going to build one," he of
fered. His eyes, even in the lightest moments,
had a glow and a warmth that startled.
"I unless it's built already," said Amelie.
She applied herself hurriedly to her break
fast, which the waiter set down before her.
After all, one didn't tell one's Intimate affairs
to strangers.
"May I have the sugar back again?" she
inquired quaintly.
"Which means," he interpreted, handing it,
"that you consider we're getting on too fast
for dining car acquaintances. Sorry! Shall
we go back and begin at the weather? I'll try
-to progress more slowly. Let me see books
look safe enough, and yet they got us into per
sonalities in no time."
"I really like personalities, rather," said
Amelie unexpectedly.
"Which means you've reconsidered and are
willing to take a chance on my being respect
able "
She lifted an eyebrow at him impertinently.
"Oh, respectable no question of that but
how safe are you?"
"Not too safe to be Interesting, I hope."
"A dark man and a blonde woman, you
know," said Amelie daringly "nature's danger
signals, so I've been told."
"Then it must have been a blonde man or a
dark woman that told you, he retorted pleas
antly. He finished his breakfast and lingered, mak-,
ing conversation, obviously attracted by her!
Amelie deliberately dawdled over hers. They
discovered a bookish tendency in common
laughed at the same things.
She said at last, rising: "Goodby you may
go back to Benavente now."
"Perhaps I shall see you later on in the ob
servation car?"
Did he sound assured. A frequent con
queror? Amelie replied coolly:
"Oh, I scarcely think so."
He bowed, accepted the, rebuff with a dig
nity so delightful Amelie felt herself absurd to
have offered it.
Nevertheless, she left him standing there
and made her way back to the Pullman,
where among her bags and wraps and maga
zines she sat down determinedly to think of
Arthur and the future. It was not so easy to
think of Arthur. He seemed at first to wear a
small, dark mustache, which was, of course,
ridiculous. Amelie swept her mind clear of
extraneous matter and said to herself over and
over like a charm, "Riverside, June 15th, love'."
In the midst of which, some one paused In her
section, murmured a vague apology, and sat
down in the other seat. It was the man of the
dining car. '
Amelie flushed brilliantly. Alarm took her.
Had her first and only adventure in unac
credited romance resulted unfortunately?
"Sorry." ho said, with an appeasing smile,
"know it seems like a silly musical show or
something. I nearly doubted my eyes when I
came down the car Just now and saw you sit
ting here. Have you the lower?"
"Yes," said Amelie, a trifle coldly, "I
have."
He continued deprecatingly:
"I am going as far as San Bernardino."
"So am I," said Amelie.
At which a tide of amusement rose In them
both.
"Riverside?" he suggested hopefully.
Amelie nodded, trying to look grim.
"And the Mission inn?"
"I'll, this Is to sbsurd' si cried,
"Ln t it?" h aiitx-d. "but I do think, In
ilia Intcreais of propriety, we atmuld not tail
racli other our namra and piodur letteu by
way of credentials,, I'on'i jou?"
, Amelie had really a d"lUiou laugh, alight
i.nd silvery, with a shy sort of tatth, bhe told
hint formally It th mldt of I';
' "Mm la Amelie Lawrenc,"
"It'a utterly adorable," ha imumcnlt.1.
"bounds Ilka ( roo's and moonlight,"
What s our?" h demanded,
"Don Iteynard."
"Aa In fK?"
"Aa in a Kremh fr Heynard accent on
tha lant syllable, I'm fuuv about that, Ahat
do you think I sound lik7"
"You sound like th loter In a medarn
French comedy." Amelie told him quickly;
"hut you look like a FpanlPh grander on t or
twic removed."
Keynsrd said with a softened pot In his
voire, "My mother wa H.uiih. Her nam
.i Meivedca t'astcllanoi."
"How lovely!" a.ild Amclln softly. Mia added
Willi a ahy aeon of suddn Intimacy: "Mines
nam waa Amelu Manning brfora ah married
my father,'
"t lint la it now?" lie en d.
"Amelia Manning Ijiwrtino Wollrrs," jM
Amelie.
"Oh!" said Don ' lie) mrd. " "I see." II
looked so sympathetic that Amelie's underltp
nearly quivered. "Are uu running away from
a stepfather, by sny chance?"
"I am going" Amello begun, Hhe slopped,
and looked down at her two hands folded nicely
together In her lap, Jt occurred to her sud
denly, almotit violently, that to say to this fat
dilating stranger that h was going out to meat
Arthur uud be married to him would undoubt
edly put a period to what was beginning to seem
the most romantic of advenlurea.
AImo. once married to Arthur, romantic ad
vcut'iiTH would likely not come her way every
i.ay In th wpek, If any day In any week.
It was not, deliberately, as a last fling that
she embarked upon the tiling but something
like it. Her mental procewrB were su'-h ss to
bring a flush to her smooth, soft cheek and
Keep her long, dark lashes at halfmust.
"What shHil we talk about?" ho Inquired
suddenly, watching her. "that Is likely to get
ua past tho preliminaries quickest and put ua
heart to heart, so to speak. I know a lot' of
thliiKS on which I'd like to compare preferences
with you."
"Begin at the beginning and tell me about
you," commanded Amelle. "You'll like that and
I can be thinking what to leave out about me."
She had a faint, a very faint and rather
provocative dimple In her left cheek. Don Rey
nard observed It at once.
"I'll tell you on thing," tie said earnestly,
"and that is this: I never expected, when curs
ing my luck at having to take this upper yester
day, that you oh, well: How far back shall I
begin? I was born of honest parents not so
poor then as later, unhappily In a plarf in
Louisiana of which you never heard in Bayou
Lafourche My father had som monpy, from
his father; won some mor In the Louisiana
lottery, of cruel fame; lost everything In th
same convenient way and shot himself through
the head one fine morning In April when I was
5 years old."
Amelie exclaimed sharply a small, shaken
sound. For all his light tone and the slightly
bitter mockery of his words thero was, for th
moment, a heavy shadow in her companion's
eyes
"My story at least begins with a. shock
technically, I believe, that's said to b good.
It's whfn I think of my mother it seems inde
cently unfair. Sho wasn't made for hard times.
She didn't know how to be poor. Nor unhappy.
She was lovely and frail and helpless. She died
a year after my father, and an aunt in Chicago
took me. I must have been a handful. But she
had three boys of her own who licked m into
shape, gratuitously. I went to school with them,
went to college, got out, floundered around a
bit, tried business, tried law to please my aunt
tried architecture, to please myBelf and
found myself.
"Oh, you are an architect!" said AmeU happily-
"Of sorts," he admitted, smiling into her
eager eyes. "Why? Do you like the tribe? Or
is it just because you are going to build a house
unless it's built already?"
"I like houses," she explained, smiling back
at him. "And I've been working In a shop
where we did a bit of decorating, you know!
Oh, not a big shop. But we used to help people
about framing and draperies and things."
"I like girls who worlc at something," said
Don Reynard, approvingly. "I was afraid you
might be an idle rich."
"Ma!" said Amelie scornfully. "Do I look It?"
"Now that," he returned gravely, "is some
thing we won't go Into, becaus if I tell you so
early as this, what I think you look like, I shall
be snubbed and put out of this section."
"I'm glad you realize it."
"So, Instead, suppose you tell me about you,"
he finished gravely. "And then we can proced
to likes and dislikes, favorite flowers, pet aver
sions and such. Begin at the beginning. When
I was a little girl by the way you aren't much
more than that now, are you?" 1
"When I was a little girl," copied Amelle,
Ignoring frivolities.
She told him a great deal about herself In
th next half-hour, all of it quite truthful, but
none of It involving Arthur.
And when she had done with her feminine
Oryssey, they went on as he had suggested, likes
to dislikes, of which it appeared almost at once
they had an extraordinary number in common.
Amelie had never known a man with whom
she felt herself so Instantly and utterly at home
in the most beautiful sense of the word. She
began to feel and so, apparently, did he, almost
at once, as if they had known each other forever.
"Simpatlca that's what you are, most of
till!" he told her just before they went out to
luncheon together.
"Sympathetic?" inquired Amelie, frankly
pleased.
Don Reynard looked at her for a moment,
smiling his dark, amused smile before he an
swered: "Not Just that, exactly. Sympathetic, of
course, congenial all that sort of thing. But
It implies as well let me see! Someone you you
could love, if you see what I mean. That's
really the sense of It." ,
Amelie saw. It was what in a less definite
phrasing she had been working out to herself
about him. A trifle early to have arrived at
it, on either side.
They lunched together. Tart of that after
noon he took himself off to the smoker while
Amelia tried to sleep and tiresomely couldn't;
but part they sat and talked as in the morning,
of a thousand suddenly Important nothings,
after which they dined together, and for two v
moonlit dusty hours watched thin silver rails
spinning out into the flying shadows behind the
train.
A folding chair on the rear platform of an
observation car is not a cushiony seat, but
Amelle could not remember afterward any dee
discomfort. She went to sleep with the sound
of a slow caressing drawl in her ears meaning
to dream of Arthur.
On the following day she meant to tell about
Arthur. But she didn't. For the following oay,
advancing out of farms Into prairies and
out of prairies into long gray stretches
of sage brush with painted rocks smudg
ing the sky line, advanced also with an
incredible swiftness and a breathless charm in
to a multitude of acutely personal discoveries
as that they both liked quantities of sugar in
coffee (after all it ha.d begun with the augar
bowl significant), as that neither ot them could
bear "Main Street" (with all the rest of th
world devouring it), as that he adored beauti
ful hands, and Amelie's were the Innocent pride
of her life. As that he as that she as that
they!
ll'a never a new story, unless you happen to
b starring in it.
Don Reynard had laughed at a hundraa
other men for the same sort of thing into '
(Continued oa tf t B.)
