Bounil fd,
. Bellefonte, Pa., January 14, 1927.
RECOMPENSE.
They told me the roses were cruel,
Surrounded with thorns untold;
The story of gold and the rainbow,
Was only a fable old.
But the sun-kissed roses unfolded,
To yield me a perfume sweet;
And the kind of the western sunset,
Scattered his gold at my feet.
They told me the snowdrifts of Winter,
Were deeper than ever before;
The murmuring winds of the Summer,
Had gone to return never more.
But in the warm light of the Springtime,
The snowdrifts all melted away;
The soft winds returned with the Summer.
To scatter the clouds of each day.
They told me the life of a Christian,
Was toilsome, and dark, and cold;
The love and rewards of the Master,
Were all for the brave and bold.
The sun of His love fell upon me—
My heaviest crosses are light;
And out of the gloom and the darkness,
He bringeth me sunshine bright.
—By Mrs. A. S. Roe.
remem pA ees ene
A WAY OF ESCAPE.
For Oliver Emerald, going down
the white steps of his new house and
pausing to look back at his new wife,
perfection reigned.
He ran back up the steps.
“Dearest!” he said. He was keen
to utter something more. “Dearest!”
he uttered, and went down again.
“Qliver,” cried Clare practically,
“what night shall we have the dinner
party?”
“Not till Saturday when the Wern-
ers are back,” he replied. “Not be-
fore Saturday on any account. But I
don’t want to dictate, darling.”
“Shall we ask the Ramsays or the
Mertons ?”
“The Mertons—I don’t like your go-
ing with Helen Ramsay. Not that I
want to run you, dearest!”
“And Oliver—we didn’t decide
Yhetper to have lobster or to skip the
sh,
“Oh, skip it—skip it! Though I
simply will not decide for you, angel.”
He broke into a run to catch the
interurban. Clare looked after him
with adoration. He was everything.
She turned indoors. It was the first
at-home morning of their presum-
able fifty or sixty years together. As
she thought of this, her eye fell on a
little marble angel on the clock. And
something in her consciousness sank.
She thought that it was because the
clock said nine-fifteen and there was
everything to do before Arthur came
—Arthur, the first member of her
family whom she had seen since six
weeks before she had driven away
from her home with Oliver. Oliver
and Arthur and Linda—the little sis-
ter who had mysteriously left them
five years before—made up Clare's
nearest world. More than anybedy
save Oliver and that sister, or her
memory, Clare loved this elder broth-
er. Yet when she heard his ring and
his step in the passage, she was pos-
sessed by shyness.
Arthur came in, held her face in
his hands to kiss, looked intently into
her eyes. She knew what his ques-
tion would be:
“Happy, little sister?”
“Yes—oh, yes!”
“Not just saying so?”
“No, Arthur. Oliver is—”
“Yes, of course.
Fr 27
“Oh, Arthur, I shall be the happiest
woman imaginable—"
“Clare! Are you happy now?”
She met his eyes. “Yes. Truly.
Very, very happy.”
“Well—I didn’t know. Oliver, you
know, is a pretty positive chap, and
you—well, you aren’t exactly used to
having a course mapped out for you.”
She regarded him from the heights
of her experience.
“In love you don’t boss, Arthur.
You want to do what the other pet-
son wants.”
“You do and you don’t,” Arthur
said. “If you each identify yourself
with the other, who is the one to act?”
“Things settle themselves—if you
love enough,” Clare offered.
“I don’t know. But you belong to
yourself, and so does Oliver. Your
inner voices don’t marry, you know!
Surely they continue to talk to each
one of you individually—no ?”’
“You don’t understand,” said Clare
stiffly.
“Either I'm right,” said Arthur, “or
else, in any happy marriage, either
the husband or the wife disappears—
becomes swallowed up!”
She cried, “They both disappear!
They're both born again.”
“Once in a million times. The other
nine hundred thousand, and so on, one
is sacrificed to the birth of the other
—if they don’t watch out.”
“Well, it’s all right,” said Clare.
“Oliver and I know everything.
We..”
His delighted laughter made her
laugh too.
When he went away he put his arms
about her with wistfulness in his tend-
derness.
“Little sister,” he said, “married
life is like any other life—and like
dying: it has to be done by one and
by one.”
“Marriage
“Not at all.
thing is.”
Arthur shook his head. “Nothing
is,” he said. ‘“That’s the grand mis-
take of the ages. That's defeated
more marriages than anything else—
even than selfishness. No, don’t be
misled. Marriage is entered upon by
pairs, but in it you succeed or you fail
in a tremendous solitude.”
“Not Oliver and I!” said Clare in-
corrigibly.
Arthur went away laughing. In an
hour he was back again, his face grave
and questioning. Something in his
look arrested and warned her. To her
question but half formed he replied
without gladness:
“It’s Linda. I oughtn’t to tell you
this first day—"
Clare gave a cry. “She's alive!”
But are you hap-
does?” Clare cried.
It’s by two’s, if any-
They had both dreamed of such a
moment, of hearing that this strange-
ly vanished sister had returned; but
now that the moment was here, even
Arthur was amazed at the passion of
tenderness in Clare’s face.
“Yes, she’s alive,” he told her. “I've
seen her—but oh, Clare, she’s so
changed.”
“She's sick—she needs mel”
“She’s sick and she wants you,” he
assented. “But it isn’t only that.
Clare—she’s—she’s somebody else.
She’s not Linda any more.”
“You mean—"
“T don’t know what I mean. But
she’s like a shell—she’s hard and bit-
ter—she’s tired—I’ve asked her noth-
ing. But I cansee...... n
“Take me to her, Arthur!”
“She said she would come here.
She can’t tell when she can come—
she’s trying to work and she wouldn’t
tell me where. But if you'll see her,
I'm to telephone to a number she gave
me and leave the word.”
“Qh, Arthur, I can’t wait to see ber.
Linda—think of seeing my little Lin-
dg"
“She said that when she heard of
Mother's death, she meant never to
come back. But she’s ill—she needs
”
“Oh, she needs us!” Clare was si-
lent, thinking back to that morning
when their mother had come to them,
sick with the import of her news,
Linda’s curt note in her hand. Linda
had given no explanation, had sent no
later word; their mother had died
without ever having heard from her.
And now— i
“She walked into my office,” said
Arthur,” as if I had seen her yester-
day. And I didn’t know her.”
“Qh, Arthur,” Clare cried, “I want
Oliver to know!”
Arthur looked at her with sudden
attention.
“Qliver isn’t going to be very keen
about her,” he said dryly.
“She’s my sister—she’s—"
“She’s a human being and Oliver's
going to judge her as such.”
“Oliver will want whatever I want.”
“Perhaps he’ll expect you to want
what he wants. It may be that Oliv-
er’s inner voice won’t be the same as
yours. Remember my theory of soli-
tude!”
She asked him to tell his theory to
the dinner party—the dinner party
which was on Saturday night, and
which skipped the fish, and at which
the Mertons and not the Ramsays sat
down, even as Oliver had specified.
Clare would have preferred Friday,
was proud of her Newbergs, and liked
the Ramsays far better than the Mer-
tons, but of all this Oliver knew noth-
ing. He merely adored Clare.
In the gray dining-room, in the car-
dle-lit spring dusk, they made a vital
group of thrilling significance. Of
the ten at table, Clare and Oliver, with
their seven weeks, had the shortest
span of married life; and the Mer-
tons’ year and a half made the long-
est. Between were the Weldons and
the Berthelets, with their year or so
together. The women were in the
twenties, all on the incline of mental
vigor, with every day an assumable
dawn of newly unfolded powers. The
men, in the late twenties and early
thirties, were of the “normal” of
America: one of the university, two
of other professions, and Oliver the
new partner in a great buisness.
None had been married before and all
were childless. They sat there to-
gether in the beauty of a possible
mental and probable physical fertility,
the potential heads of four lines of
descendants, accepting, with the grace
of children, life and all that it offered.
At the foot of the table sat Arthur
Alward, so arrestingly good-looking
that they listened to him with more
than curiosity when Clare said to him:
“Tell them to their faces what you've
been saying of all our lives.”
“It’s no mere observation,” he pro-
tested, “and no theory. It’s a law.”
He offered them his Law of Soli-
tude in the Decisions of the Married
how “we think” means that one of the
two thinks and absorbs in the pro-
cess the other, who continues to think
otherwise but is content to be absorb-
ed. And he lazily enjoyed their throes
of protest.
“I'm myself,” said Jenny Merton;
“Bobby Merton is Bobby. We were
so when we met and when we married,
and behold us now. But everything
there’s been to decide since we were
married we've decided togther.
Haven’t we, Bobby?”
“Yes, you have,” said Bobby
promptly.
Their laughter was broken by Mary
Weldon’s, “Well, at our house we’ve
been so unanimous that we're silly.
Haven’t we, Gene?”
“I’ve been unanimous,” Gene agreed,
“but you’ve made most of the deci-
sions score, Molly. ....”
“But now see us,” cried Carrie
Berthelet. “The only big fight we
ever had was when I gave in about
going away on an expensive vacation
that—" ;
“That you wanted to go on most
awfully,” said Nick Berthelet, “or we
wouldn’t have gone.”
“And I gave in,” she finished con-
tentedly. “And so we decided that
together, didn’t we?”
“There’s my point,” said Arthur Al-
ward. “You may act together, hut
your decisions are solitary affairs.
Marriage can’t alter that.”
At either end of the table, Clare
and Oliver sat listening. Their eyes
said triumphantly, “There! We knew
we were more married, better married,
than all these people. We really do
settle things together, you know.”
Coffee was to be served in the little
living-room. It was as they entered
the room, laughing, that Clare saw
someone who had been wandering
about there, and who now turned and
faced them. Though Clare would
have known her at a casual glance,
she now ran forward with a cry of
certainty.
“Linda!”
“You didn’t mind my waiting, did
you?” said Linda. “I asked the serv-|l
ant not to tell you.”
It was like her to walk in after
five years and greet Clare as if they
had parted at tea-time. But as she
kissed her sister, Clare’s heart sank.
It was as Arthur had said—Linda had
come back, with the five years writ-
ten upon her head to toe. Inthe black
EE
! hair—when had it been so black?—
and her red cheeks and lips and her
challenging eyes; in the sleeveless
street gown; and more than these, in
some strange atmosphere about her
which flooded the room like a blazing
colored light. Before that light the
placid and commonplace suburban wo-
men went out like candles.
Clare got through the presentations,
through Linda’s brief indolent inspec-
tion, and dismissal, of Oliver; through
her swift amused appraisal of the wo-
men and the polite murmurs of her
guests. They all waited for Linda to
speak, as if she were some new cen-
ter of energy which drove all their
thoughts against the walls.
“1 didn’t know it was a party,” said
Linda, with enormous distinctness, “or
I wouldn’t have broken in. I've only
an hour—"
“Only an hour!” Clare cried. She
was hardly thinking of her dinner
guests. Here was Linda, her little
sister, whom she had loved and whose
loss was the only touch of tragedy in
her own life.
Linda was extremely at home—at
home, though with a betraying man-
ner of defiance. She was as different
from these other women as a rhine-
stone from a box of beads, and she
enjoyed her rhinestone estate.
“A frightful journey,” she said, “so
frightfully cold. The parlor car was.
like ice—I always take the parlor
car. The food was abominable. What
a trip it is out from the city—do you
all make it often? Or do you stay
here, Clare—now that you're mar-
ried?”
The servant was there with the cof-
fee. Clare poured it, thankful for
Arthur's contained fashion of han-
dling the time. When the coffee had
been handed, she heard above her
Oliver's discreet murmur:
“Clare—this isn’t Linda!”
“Yes, it Is.”
“But the picture that you have of
her—"
“I know—1I know.
stand.”
“You must get rid of her before the
Werners come.”
“Get rid of her!”
“Certainly. Surely you see what it
means—""
“But Oliver—”
“Clare!”
“But how can I—"
“Clare!”
She rose, made her way to Linda
and took her empty cup.
“Will you all excuse us,” Clare said
evenly, “if I run away with her for a
few minutes? We must make a plan
laughed and followed.
“Plans!” she cried. “Not for me. You
either do a thing or you don’t do it—
see?”
In her room Clare took her sister in
her arms. “Darling! Tell me things
—oh, I've so longed for you—to know
where you were—"
“I knew youd do that way,” said
Linda.
She stood at Clare’s mirror and
powdered her face.
“Arthur did that too,” she went on.
“You wouldn’t think he was emotion-
al, would you? I thought how, won-
derful it’d be to have a relative. who
didn’t ask you a string of questions.
Now I’ve only one thing to tell—
see? I went away on my own. I've
lived my own life—and I'm answer-
able to nobody for it. If Mother had
lived, it would have been different. 1
always thought that sometime she and
I—well, she didn’t live. But there is
one thing I want to tell you.
“Don’t tell me even that if you'd
rather not, Linda. It’s only that I
love you.”
“Do you? I wonder! Now we'll
see whether you do. You remember
about my heart when I was a little
girl? Well, now it’s gone to pieces,
or it’s going hard, and they tell me I
mustn’t work for a year. There's a
threat of something else too—you
see, Clare, it’s selfishness.? 1 was al-
ways selfish, wasn’t I? It looks as
I don’t under-
if I'd nowhere else to go—but that | 5
"her in his arms.
isn’t true. I could keep on, as I have
been. But I want to come here to
you—if you'll have me. I’ve no claim,
I know. . . . That's about all, I think.
She finished with a hard brightness,
2 dry-eyed look about the room, a
faint smile at Clare.
Clare cried only, “Linda! You'll
come here to me?”
“Shall 1? That's what I wondered!
Your husband looks to me pretty ter-
ribly good. = Still, that kind— How-
ever, he might not be able to stand
me here, on account of the neighbors.”
“Linda! Oliver would want any-
body here that I wanted!”
“Thanks. Put it up to him first,
though.” :
“That is absurd, Linda. Of course
we want you—when will you come?”
“Put it up to him first,” said Linda.
“I've enough to live on for a week.
And if he won’t have me—"
Clare’s protestations were inter-
rupted by a tap at the door and Arth-
ur came in.
“You're awfully good-locking, Art,
if you weren't so solemn,” said Linda.
“I'm solemn too, but I don’t look it,
do I? I’m inviting myself to come
to stay for a year with Clare and her
husband.”
She caught Arthur’s glance at Clare.
“That’s what I thought,” Linda said,
“but Clare’s going to put it to him.”
“Linda, look here,” said Arthur
bluntly, “you’ll never be happy in—"
“In respectability! Yes, I should.
For a while. ‘When the devil was
sick, the devil a monk. . . .” Besides,
oh, besides—"
She turned to the mirror again and
used her powder-puff; but Clare saw
her face. Linda’s eyes were filled with
tears.
“Darling!” Clare cried. “Darling!”
“Let me send you somewhere,
Linda,” Arthur was saying, “to a san-
itarium or some quiet place. I could
manage—"'
“Arthur!” Clare cried. “Don’t you
se? What she wants is me.”
“So does Oliver,” said Arthur short-
Yeoliver will want what I want,” said
Clare stiffly.
As if he were speaking for himself,
Oliver's voice sounded outside the
door.
“Clare!
Clare!” :
He was on the threshold, a tone of
The Werners are here.
injury in his voice. “They’ve been
here for ten minutes. I don’t know
what to say to them. Surely your
sister will excuse you—"
“She’ll come down to meet them!”
Clare cried defiantly.
Linda laughed. “No,” she said,
“I've met enough for one night.
Haven't I, my brothers? Good-by,
darling. Ill hear from you sometime
at the end of next week? Send me a
letter by Arthur and I'll drop in on
him. No—TI’ve
what I've been saying. Good-by, my
dears. Go back to your party.”
She ran down the stairs before
them. From the foot of the stairs her
voice rang out with its strange vigor:
“My best love to all the guests, you
know!”
“My heavens,” said Oliver, “what
will the Werners think ?”
Clare looked at him—a strange
look, a look which he had never seen
on her face before.
He saw the look again when the
guests had gone, and the hall-door
was locked. He turned out the light,
groped for Clare in the lowest step,
and together in silence they went up
the stairs. In this week in their
home, this small ceremony had become
a habit—the silence, Oliver’s arm
about her, the kiss as they stepped in-
side their door. He kissed her now,
saw her eyes and said:
“Clare, what is it?”
She answered. “It’s
course.
Linda,
saying, “Don’t think of that, sweet-
heart. I don’t believe they’ll think
any less of you—you can’t help. . .”
“What are you talking about?”
Clare asked sharply.
“Why, the bunch are pretty under-
standing. They won’t mind Linda—"
“ ‘Mind!” What is it to me what
they mind?”
“Well, the Werners would have
minded, let me tell you. I was on pins
for fear they’d see her—or hear her!
It would have been the end of us, with
them—"’
“Oliver! You’re talking about Lin-
da—that I’ve tried to get trace of for
five years. ...”
“T know, sweet. It’s terrible fo you
to find her like this. It’s incredible
that she’s your sister.”
“But she is my sister: And I love
her more than anything in the world
but you.”
“Angel! What a woman you are!
What can we do for her?”
“There’s only one thing to do.”
“Money. Of course we'll do that.”
“Not money. She’s alone—and she’s
sick. I want her to come here.”
“Here with us?” His incredulity
was almost comie.
“Why, of course. I'm all she has.
She’s turned to me when she needs
me.”
“When somebody else has cast her
off, I'll wager.”
At this instead of a blaze of anger
Clare felt a leepening certainty of
what she was to do. She said gently,
“That’s not it. If it were true, she
would need me all the more because
of it.”
“Clare—you can’t pretend not to
know what sort of woman she is?”
“Then she does need me all the
more!”
“But you! What about your good
name? What about my name?”
“Qur good name. Oliver, could you
love me if I turned away from her
for any reason?”
“Of course, darling, we must be
‘good to her. We'll send her some-
where till she gets well—we’ll heip
to see that she has enough for every
care—we’ll help her afterward to find
her place again.”
“That isn’t enough. She needs me.”
“But I need you! You belong to
me!”
“I belong to myself—" she stopped.
The words had a peculiar familiarity.
Arthur’s words— “when all is said,
Oliver.
inner voice speaks to you alone.”
“Darling.” He came to her, took
! For the first time
since their springtime, she stood
quietly, did not turn to him. “I adore
you,” he told her.
on earth for you. But are you willing
to—to harm our love by having her in
the house with us, to share our table,
to meet our friends, to have them
think—"
“I don’t care what they think,”
Clare said. “I care what you think.
And I care what my mother wouid
think, if she were alive to know.”
“Darling—you don’t mean that you
want your sister here?”
“I love her. Whatever she’s done
can’t change that, any more than it
can change my relationship to her.”
“But you can see, surely vou can
see, what having her here will mean
to us socially?”
“If it does, I'm sorry—on your ac-
count. But I can’t help it.”
He moved away from her, stood at
a window. All that he saw was a re-
flection of the pretty room, the hang-
ings, the shades, Clare in her charm-
ing gown. It was heaven, his heaven.
Their friends were a part of their new
life together. The Werners and
their connections were going to mean
everything. He saw the years ahead,
smooth, prosperous, filled with ever
more delightful relationships with nice
peaple, charming people to whom Lin-
a=
He went back to Ciare, looked sor-
rowfully into her eyes. “Sweetheart,”
he said, “you do not see this thing as
it is and I don’t wonder at it. But
you must trust me. You must let me
decide this for you.”
She lay awake, staring at the dim
glass. Was this what other women
had found out, hundreds of thousands
of them, millions of them: That the
inner voice which spoke to them and
told them what to do was as nothing
to the voice of the man whom they
had chosen and who told them that
his voice—or his judgment, or his ex-
pediency—was the rule by which they
should walk?
Could she make Oliver see that she
had married him but that she had not
married his conscience nor had he
married hers?
Did married people ever manage to
make the We a real We, instead of a
masculine I, or a feminine I, masked
as that conjugal We?
She thought about the men and wo-
no address—that’s
of ;
To her amazement she heard Oliver |
you belong to yourself and so does |
Married or single, your own
“I'll do anything ;
ih - \
men who had been there at the house
that evening—the Mertons, the Wel-
dons, the Berthelets. What would
, they do? The three husbands had
agreed whimsically that they were
! outvoted in their households. Clare
‘thought that on inessentials this was
| very likely true; but that on the es-
' sentials, on a matter like this—oh,
but there never had been for them a
‘matter like this. Nor for anyone!
: And Linda should come to her. Any
woman would say the same.
At breakfast they did not reopen
the matter. Clare knew that Oliver
considered it settled and closed.
Alone Clare cried, as she had been
longing to do all night. A little later
Arthur came in and went into the li-
brary to read. When she saw him,
Clare cried:
“P’ll wager you're going to side with
Oliver!”
“About not having Linda come
here? No—I think he’s wrong.”
“Good, Arthur! And you think that
I should hold out to have her here—"
“That’s another matter.”
“But isn’t it always right to stand
up fer what you know is right?”
“That’s not the trouble. It's easy
enough to stand up for one principle,
perhaps—but here two principles con-
flict: your duty to your husband and
your duty to your sister.”
i. “You think that Oliver should come
| first?”
“Don’t you?”
“Whether he is right or wrong?”
“But he’s both. Having Linda here
will hurt you both socially—she has
talked to me a bit, Clare. But even
: without knowing, one knows—by that
strange aura which a woman carries
about her and which tells everybody
what she really is. If the Werners
came to know about her, had to meet
her here, they simply wouldn’t come
here. This might even hurt Oliver
with them in a business way. You
might as well face it. I know the
Werners, and I know that Oliver's
prophecy is probably perfectly right.”
| “Arthur, that oughtn’t to weigh
‘when Linda’s future is concerned.”
{ “How about Oliver's future? And
i the future of your children when they
‘come ?”
| They stared at that wall. But when
they sat down together at luncheon,
| they were both laughing. Clare bad
: said dejectedly:
| “I never knew living was such a
: terrible job.”
“It has,” said Arthur, “that repu-
tation.”
| She tried to think of any problem
that could be so hard. To choose be-
tween darkness and light was easy.
To choose between two lights was
hardly less simple. But—to choose
between two dark spots!
When Oliver came home, she search-
ed his face to see whether the day
had brought its own solution. Oliver’s
| face was serene enough. Even when
‘he asked:
| “Have you written to Linda?”
| “I’ve written, but I haven’t mailed
it.”
{ “But she ought to know that she
| cannot come here. She’ll want to
make other plans.”
“QOliver—"
| “Clare!”
They said no more.
‘at him and saw for the first time a
stranger. Oliver she had married, but
| this stranger had also married. With
Oliver she was one flesh. From this
stranger she was living and was fo
live her separate life. She lay beside
him, knew his tenderness, and thought:
“Here is the man I have married, and
here am I his wife. Here also a man
whom I do not know, and I am some-
one whom he does not know. Which
pair of us, then, is to lead a life to-
gether? Or have we all four got to
make out as best we can?”
The next day brought a letter from
Linda. It came after Oliver had gone,
and Clare was alone as she read:
“Dearest Clare:
“It did somthing to me to see you.
Oh darling—I wanted to say things to
vou, to tell you things. I wanted you
‘to know how it all came about—now
innocent I am inside, no matter what
you may think. It was all such a hox-
rid jumble—I never meant to be bad
: —oh, that sounds like every man in
{
Clare looked
jail, and perhaps it’s true for them as
it is for me. I don’t regret every-
thing, either-—you won’t like that.
{ But Clare, what I did regret, when I
saw you, regret so that it kills me—
(it kills me—was this long silence.
{ Why didn’t I write to you? I knew
perfectly well that you were the best
{ friend I have in the world, that yeu
{ would never go back on me—"
i! “No,” Clare said, “No, I never wiil
go back on you, little sister!”
Having made up her mind, she faced
the necessity to tell Oliver. She wrote
another letter to Linda, but she did
! not post the letter until she should
have told Oliver her intention. For
this recital she wanted to make some
preparation, and she had no idea what
to do. She tried to plan out what she
would say to him but every time that
she went over it in her mind, she said
something different. She would have
liked to talk to some wise being, but
the beings whom she knew seemed
not wise enough. She would have
liked to read some wise books, but all
the books that she could think of
seemed to concern something besides
her particular problem. She tried her
schoolgirl device, resorted to by the
wisest, of opening the Bible to a ran-
dom verse, and she opened at some-
thing merely about the wild ox. Fin-
ally, toward teatime, she fell asleep
with a prayer on her lips: “God, help
me to help Linda. God help me to be
right with Oliver. God help me. ...”
She woke with a sense of renewal,
relaxed and yet invigorated It was
six o'clock and it was the closing of
the hall door as Oliver entered which
had wakened her. He came running
up the stairs, he was calling her, he
took her in his arms and kissed her.
“Darling! I couldn’t remember how
you looked!”
“You forgot me!”
“No, but just now, in the car, I
couldn’t get you back—couldn’t re-
member how your eyes look—"
“But you loved me just the same?”
He spoke solemnly, “More every
minute of my life.”
All the delicious foolery and earn
estness of every day. But there came
to her something of the unspeakable
wonder of love. It came to her newly,
as if before now she had indeed known
Oliver’s love, but not the very face of
love itself. She held him, thought,
“Isn’t this enough? Is there any-
thing more? Not to hurt nor to hin-
der this that we have—Oliver and I—
isn’t this all that I have to do?”
She drew back and looked at him.
but between his eyes and hers was the
face of Linda—of the little sister
whom she had loved as a little girl;
her mother’s baby, for whose return
their mother had died grieving.
“What is it, darling?” Oliver was
asking.
“I love you—I love you!” she cried.
“Will you always remember that?”
“Remember—no! Ill live it,” said
Oliver.
She thought, “How much does a
man’s love mean? In an hour, when
I defy him, how much will it mean
then?”
Not at dinner obviously. She would
not tell him then. It would be after-
ward, when they were sitting alone.
And all through dinner she looked at
him with her new question: How much
does love mean? Is it love only when
it has its own way? How would Oli-
ver lcok at her when she told him?
What if it meant a long ugly argu-
ment, during which in each something
ugly should rise in words? What if
he asked her to choose between Lind:
and him— She would not think of
that. She thought, “In an hour, ll
know.”
But when they rose from the table
and went into the little living-room,
Clare was conscious of an impulse in
her not to tell Oliver yet. She put it
aside, realizing that she must mail
Linda’s letter. But the impulse came
back, was present as insistently as
words, a definite urge and direction
not to tell him now. She said to her-
self that this was foolish, that it was
even cowardice. Was she really afraid
to tell Oliver? She turned to him,
ready to open her lips to tell him. But
he unfolded his paper with some slight
comment and in that respite the in-
hibition in her was like words: “Don’t
tell him to-night!”
The long quiet evening passed, and
she did not speak. The compulsion to
silence was like a command, sharp,
definite, imperative. There was noth-
ing unusual in such commands, she
had obeyed some such innei impulse
all her life as, she thought, has every-
one else; often this had been done
against all reason and she had ex-
plained it by the familiar words:
the sense of peace and security in
“Something told me to do so-and-so,”
or, “I felt in my bones that I had
better not.”
Ten o'clock came. Oliver rose and
held out his hands; together they
moved about the rooms, turning off
the lamps. In the darkened hall, Oli-
ver groped for her and they weni up
i the stairway. Still she did not speak.
| Her brain went on: “if I don’t tell
him to-night, there will not be time
jin the morning—and Linda should
| have her letter. I must tell him—"
I But the command within went on
i too: “Not to-night.”
A rainy morning could not darken
{ which she woke. Her mind went on
with its thinking, but underneath all
was a. sense of singing calm. She
thought: “What is it? I ought to be
worried. I ought to be frightened.
Last night I was! Shall I tell Oliver
before he goes to the office—"
But in the end she stood on the
white steps to see him go, and watei-
ed him wave from the interurban plat-
form. And she had not told him her
resolve, nor again mentioned Linda.
On her desk lay the unmailed letter
to Linda, bidding her to come to them.
Clare sealed it, ran out to the street
and dropped it in 2 postbox.
By evening she was certain that her
failure to talk with Oliver had been
sheer cowardice. Now she would be
firm. She would not wait for dinner
to be over. She would begin as soon
as he came into the house.
When she heard his latch-key she
ran downstairs. She would pull him
into the library and tell him instantly.
She would say, “Oliver, it makes no
difference what happens—I can’t fail
Linda now.”
And to her surprise, she found in
herself now no denying impulse. The
'way seemed to be clear for her to
speak.
She heard voices in the lower hall-
way. Someone had entered with Oliv-
er. It was Arthur. So much the bet-
ter. She would tell them both.
{ She went down the stairs, her white
i frock lightening the shadows. She
greeted them, smiling, drew them into
; the library.
i And Oliver said, “Has Linda come
yet?”
{| “Linda! Neo....
“She wants your endorsement of a
: plan of mine,” said Arthur. “I’m go-
|ing to take her to the Mediterranean
this winter.”
“You. . . .” said Clare uncertainly.
“I've been wanting to go abroad.
This gives me an excuse. I've the
money, as it happens. And Linda's
keen to go.”
“But she wanted to be with me—"
Clare began.
“With you—yes,” said Arthur. “But
she confessed to me that she was
afraid she couldn’t stand .your neigh-
bots... .., you know how Linda was.
She didn’t seem to care for your
guests the other night. Anyway, she’s
in no condition for this climate. Oh,
the Mediterranean is the thing.”
Clare was silent. Then she was to
do nothing, need decide nothing. But
she had decided! She had decided on
the necessary thing. :
Did that decision draw toward her
forces which invisibly helped? Which
provided a way of escape?
“I'm no end relieved,” Oliver was
saying. “I simply could not have her
here—""
“T understand,” said Arthur gravely.
Clare was not listening. She was
thinking: Were things as simple as
this? The right decision, made at all
costs—did it actually key all other
events to itself? She had said, “if
you love enough, things will settle
themselves.” Was this how they did
it?
Oliver had crossed to her. He was
saying. “Darling, you didn’t think I
was stupid about Linda? You did
”
(Continued on page 7, Col. 4.)