Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, February 19, 1932, Image 2

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    emsrraiic ald,
Bellefonte, Pa., February 19, 1932.
LET US SMILE
The thing that goes the farthest toward
making life worth while,
That costs the least and does the most, | one, was enough to make any girl | for Salisbury’s daughter.
is just a pleasant smile,
The smile that bubbles from a heart that
loves its fellow men, ¥
Will drive away the clouds of
and coax the sun again.
It’s full of worth and goodness, too, with
manly kindness blent—
It's worth a million dollars, and it
doesn’t cost a cent.
gloom
There is no room for sadness when we
see a cheery smile;
It always has the same good look—it's
never out of style,
It nerves us on to try again, when fail-
ure makes us blue;
The dimples of encouragement are good
for me and you.
It pays a higher interest, for it is mere-
ly lent—
It's worth a million
doesn’t cost a cent.
dollars, and it
A smile comes very easy—you can
wrinkle up with cheer
A hundred times before you can squeeze
out a soggy tear.
It ripples out, moreover
strings that will tug.
And always leaves an echo that is very
like a hug.
So smile, away. Folks understand what
by a smile is meant—
It’s worth a million dollars, and it
doesn’t cost a cent.
to the heart-
A BUSINESS MAN IN LOVE
Theron Flagg stopped his beauti-
ful roadster at the gate and step-
ped out himself rather a beautiful
object in immaculate and expensive
sport clothes. It was not Theron’s
fault that he looked so much like
an advertisement for one of our Bet-
ter Collars. In shabby clothes, his
good looks were intensified and he
became promptly the male Cinderella,
the poor boy who has not a chance
in the world of not winning the mil-
lionaire’s daughter.
The roadster and Theron and the
house before which they had stop-
ped made an incongruous trio. Pas-
sere-by, had there been any on this
sandy and little-traveied road, might
well have wondered what such a
young man, in such a vehicle was
doing there.
Even when it had been built, some
seventy-five years before, this house
had had neither beauty nor charm.
Three-quarters of a century had add-
ed nothing of mellowness, merely a
bay window which protruded from
its side with the unnatural aspect
of a wen or a goiter, and an in-
creasing air of shabbiness and ne-
glect. As he walked up the unkempt
path Theron wondered what color
the paint had been originally, before
the weather changed it to its pres-
ent sickly raspberry.
A terrific pounding was going on
within, a noise like the enemy bom-
bardment in a sound-picture. Ther-
on’s knock was ineffectual against
it. He hesitated, and then walked
around to the back. No shrubs or
flowers grew against the house; its
brick foundation was bare and stark
below the clapboards, like the gums
of a snarling animal. But at the
rear an enormous ctump of old lilacs
spread outward, like an enchanted
thicket, and behind them Theron
heard a girl's voice, and in some
surprise, because he had thought nc |
woman lived there, he walked to-
ward it.
“Yes, Sabra, my dear, my dar-
ling,” it was saying :n a rich sing-
song, “you may well weep! Tears
may well trickle down your cheeks
And for what reason do your pretty
eyes fill and overflow?” The voice
paused. ‘“‘Onins, my girl! A broken
heart, a disillusioned spirit are but
trifies. Here you sit in the golden
sunshine, polluting the summer air
with your onions—"
The singsong shifted imperceptibly
into actual song, warm and deep and
obviously improvised. “‘Oh, love is
brief, and so is grief—sing hey, for
pickled onions! And love is sad,
and life is made—sing hey, for pick-
led onions!”
Theron rounded the bush and stop-
ped. The singer was sitting cross-
legged on the grass, ner feet bare
beneath a faded black cotton dress,
her black hair loose. A bushel
basket of small silver onions was at
her right hand, and an enormous
yellow bowl at her left, and she was |
wielding a knife expertly.
“Yes, my dear,” she resumed, ‘you
damn yourself! It is not as though
you had to pickle onions. Of your
own free will, impelled by your own
low tastes—"” She rubbed a bare
arm across her face, and looked up
with tear-filled black eyes at Theron.
“Now just how long have you heen
standing there?” she demanded in-
dignantly. Theron flushed. “Only
a minute.”
“Well, why didn't you call out—
fool?” she asked, still angry, and
flourishing her knife.
“I'm sorry,” said Theron. “I—"
His errand seemed suddenly absurd.
“Do you like pickled onions?” she
inquired, and added, rather fiercely,
“You don’t look as if you did!”
‘I'm wild about them,” stated
Theron, and suddenly she smiled and |
her pale face was lovely.
“I'm peeling with tears in my
eyes!” she announced. “Every pearl
an onion and every onion a tear.”
She looked up at him swiftly. “Do
you think I'm crazy?”
The thought had entered Theron’s
head.
“I'm truly not,” she answered, be-
fore he could reply. “Im quite
unhappy!” Her smile flashed again;
she seemed amused as much at her-
self as at him, and she sat, staring
quite frankly, inspecting him from
his Panama to his feet. “I never
saw such white shoes!” she said.
Theron looked down at them.
‘They're new,” he explained. “They
won't be so white long.”
“‘Oh, both my shoes are shiny
new—and pristine is my hat!” she
sang. “ “My dress is nineteen-twen-
ty-two—my life is all like that!”
D’you know Dorothy Parker's stuff?
All your clothes are new though,
aren't they?”
Theron’s orderly mind was getting
| under control. This girl must be
| Dirk Salisbury’s daughter. She prob-
ably was not insane; living here in
| eccentric.
| “My name's Theron Flagg,”
| said. “And—"
| “Do sit down,” she
stand the onions!”
He sat on the grass.
he |
interrupted | trimmed yet flourishing,
him, and added politely, “If you can neath them on a bare wooden table
“Give me were no delicacies of
ing since five this morning. “You
from New York?”
a native.”
The sculptor raised himself onan
elbow and gazed briefly into the
young man’s face.
er,” he said, and grunted.
Theron did not care for the grunt.
He did not care for Dirk Salisbury,
this dreadful house, miles from any- | nor was he at all sure that he cared
Yet he
| stayed for luncheon.
At the west side of the ugly house
| was more vegetation, grapevines, un-
and be-
food.
| Sabra had set their There
|a knife and I'll help peel ’'em,” he | precision of arrangement, no decora-
| said. an offer which surprised him
more than it did her. He liked
pickled onions well enough; in a dry
cocktail a small onion lent a subtle
flavor.
tle about a bushel of onions.
“Self-protection?” the girl
gested, smiling.
pretty clothes!”
“You needn't be so snooty about
my clothes just because they hap-
pen to be clean!” he flung at her.
Theron Flagg was not at all in the
habit of being insulting to
sug-
But there was nothing sub- |
“But think of your |
ladies, |
and in view of the girl's faded and |
undeniably dirty dress, the remark
carried its barb.
She laughed and handed him a
knife. “You're going to look right
funny when you start weeping” she
said cheerfully.
He peeled an onion, and his eyes
smarted. He had never felt quite
such a fool. Without speaking, he
peeled another, and another, and she
watched him, chuckling a little to
herself.
“Besides being Theron Flagg,
| what are you?” she inquired, at last.
“You haven't come to the wrong
house or anything, have you?”
He looked at her, aware already,
‘tion of flowers. Plates were piled,
| knives and forks dropped in a heap,
three thick glasses set one within
the other.
| But the copper casserole contain-
ed as excellent a stew as Theron
| had ever tasted in Provence, flavor-
ed with thyme and bay and garlic
land a touch of saffron. The salad,
heaped in a tin dishpan, was like no
salad he had had in America, and
the thick glasses were filled with a
very palatable red wine from an
earthen jug.
Perhaps it was the wine or the
sunshine beating down upon him
which made Theron feel so languid
and content. Certainly he had no
desire to stir himself, and the three
sat smoking and saying little.
From time to time, he looked at
Sabra. The girl was really lovely; in
repose, pale and gentle, like a Watts-
Burne—Jones-Swinburne, lady, and
in animation so conversely vivid and
| colorful.
Salisbury was the romanticist’s
idea of a sculptor; he could have
stepped intact from the
Du Maurier or Murger. A tremen-
dous man, full-bearded and full-
| throated, who roared and pounded
as though he had known her for a!
long time, or what her reaction to
his errand was going to be.
“You know that we're building a
country club here in Foxport, don’t
vou?” he asked, selecting another
onion.
tennis courts, yacht landing, and a
clubhouse. = We need all the mem-
bers we can get right now, so that
the work can go on.
“Eighteen-hole golf course, |
I'm chairman |
of the membership committee and— |
“That”s it!” she interrupted him
triumphantly. “You know, you look
like a chairman!
When I first saw
you, I thought: No, it’s not brushes; |
it’s not books.
his way through college, nor is he
deaf and dumb. It might be insur-
ance, although he’s dressed. Or—"
“Oh, shut up!” said Theron, who
was never rude to ladies. He might
(as well get it over with, and then
he would go. “Membership is a hun-
dred and a quarter a year, but if
you join now you can get a life
membership for five hundred. That's
a family membership, of course.”
The girl leaned toward him, her
tear-filled eyes shining.
“What,” she demanded, in a whis-
per, “happens to a life membership
if you die?”
In spite of his irritation, he laugh-
ed. “Well, I may look like a chair-
He's not working |
| —“thrown,” reflected Theron,
man to you, but you don’t look like
a country club member to me! How- !
ever—"
“However, my onions are getting
peeled,” she said brightly. “Would
you mind signing a jar for me?”
There were a great many onions,
and it did not seem fair to Theron
to leave her with them, now that he
had begun. She did not suggest
his’ stopping, and they peeled in
| silence for almost te~ minutes.
“I presume,” he said, ‘that
are Dirk Salisbury’s daughter.”
“Why?” she asked, looking at him
sideways out of her dark eyes. He
(did not answer at once, and she
laughed. “I'm afraid all the ladies
seen here are not ail Dirk Salis-
bury’'s daughter,” she said. Theron
had heard that, too. He
another onion. “Don’t cry!”
you
uses to a small child.
Salisbury.”
“We'd be awfully pleased to have
your father a member of the club,” !
said Theron.
| “I should think you would!” Sabra |
retorted. “However, he wouldn’t.”
‘“‘And yourself?” Theron asked.
She laughed at him. “You just
said that I don’t look like a country-
club member.”
“That,” he returned, ‘“‘is the coun-
try club’s loss.”
Her laughter heightened. “Why,
| ped her hands.
Tehron looked at her
“What makes you think I'm a busi-
ness man?” he asked.
“Aren't you?” she said.
food, and whether they were civil or |
i stay,” he told her—after
peeled |
she |
murmured, in the coaxing voice one!
“I'm Sabra :
and could not speak a dozen consec-
utive words tuned to the ears of a
Sunday-school class.
“Eating’s a fine thing!” he cried,
now. “Eat and sleep and make love
—why be a human being, anyway?
I wish I was an animal.”
His daughter's dark eyes came
alive with humor. “You're not so
far removed, darling,” she comfort-
ed him.
Theron smoked his
was silent.
Then Salisbury rose. “Come on in
and see what I've done, Sabra.”
Theron did not move.
“Come on, if you like,” Sabra in-
vited, and he followed them.
The entire lower floor of the house
with the exception of a small kitch-
en, had been thrown into one room
was
almost literally the word. Walls
had been pounded down and jagged
cracks and seams remained on floor
and ceiling where they had stood.
At one end, a couch, two chairs
and a table looked like pigmy fur-
niture; there were neither curtains
nor rugs. The rest was stone and
clay and tools and great
figures, the sculptor’s workship.
Fittingly, it was a giant Pan up-
on which Salisbury was engaged and
it was beautiful, lazy and luxurious
and subtly wicked. Theron wanted
to say something of the pleasure it
gave him.
“Lord, that's great!” he said. “I
don’t know much about sculpture—"
“But you know what you like,” in-
terrupted Salisbury dryly. “Yes, 1
know. Look here, Sabra—"
Father and daughter ignored him;
Theron felt his neck grow hot. He
cigaret and
wanted to turn and walk out of 54 there dispelled. “But she’s a nice |
their house, but he had eaten their
not, at least he would thank his
hostess before he departed.
“It was good of you to let me
Salisbury
‘had suddenly seized his chisel and
requested them both to get out.
She smiled and put out her hand | his desire to do her physical
decisively. “Good-by.”
It was plainly enough a dismissal,
and again Theron flushed, more with
anger than confusion. He howed
briefly and strode off. It was not
until he reached the
realized he had left his
‘was a good hat, but he was hanged
if he’d go back for it. He started
his’ motor and drove off.
His own home seemed gracious
and serene when he entered it: pleas-
‘ant dignity of ivory paint and ma-
hogany, soft rugs and fine chintzes.'
| His mother had asked Elizabeth
| Mason—who was not his fiancee—
It seemed very
{far from that spot beneath a ragged
| grapevine, as far as the South Seas,
her words and tone had conjured. lack in his own setting.
Flaggs originally had been natives of
the New England town in whick
Theron now spent hls summers.
At dinner, the excellent New Eng-
{land food, hot raised biscuits and a
: In| roast with Yorkshire pudding, cried |
the days of clipper ships, they haa [out to him its lack of garlic and
| been merchants who themselves set | raugh wine—which he knew was ab-
sail for foreign ports; now, a sixth | surd.
generation, in the person of Theron |
Flagg, continued the trading from a
mahogany desk in Boston.
A booming voice from beyond the
(lilac clump announced that Dirk
| Salisbury was—to such-and-such and
| this-and-that was not Sabra cooking
lunch? Then Salisbury himself, a
| bearded giant, dirty and magnifi-
cent, stood before them like Zeus,
looked incredulously at a handsome
and faultlessly attired young man
peeling onions, and roared with
laughter, thundering out ejaculations
couched in even less elegant terms
than his opening remark.
Theron blinked, but Sabra stood
up calmly. “This is Mr. Flagg,
Dirk. And don't eat those onions
—they’re for pickling.” She slap-
ped hig huge sculptor’s hand sharp-
ly, and Theron thougat that she was
like a Pekingese growling at a
Great Dane. “You'd better stay and
eat lunch with us,” she flung back
over her shoulder, as she disappear-
ed into the house.
Dirk Salisbury dropped down to
the grass and stretched out prodig-
lously. “Lord, I'm tired; been work-
“Do we ever use garlic, Mother?”
he asked.
Mrs. Flagg laughed. “Certainly,
son. Nellie always rubs the salad
bowl with a kernel. Why?”
That launched him on the Salis-
burys, and Elizabeth listened intent-
1
“Do tell me about Sabra Salis-
bury,” she said, when he paused.
“What did she have on?”
Theron chuckled. “The dirtiest
black dress I ever saw!”
That was funny, Elizabeth told
him, and Theron listened in some
surprise to certain information about
Dirk Salisbury’s «aughter. She
was, he learned, the fashion expert
for one of New York's largest
stores, at a tremendous salary. She
was in love with Jan Lupesco, the
young Hungarian-gypsy conductor
had created such a stir in New York.
Elisabeth had always wanted to
meet her. Couldn't Theron take
her to call?
Theron grinned. A swift picture
of Elisabeth, garbed for calling, and
the Salisbury menage, struck him
as ludicrous.
“New England- |
serving, no!
pages of |
sheeted !
car that he:
hat. It!
elder |
| abeth and Sabra met. Theron and
: i 1
Theron shook his head. “No; I'm Elisabeth were returning from the ing to WA Becoming how ?
| beach when a voice from a truck
| hailed them. “Hi, Theron Flagg!
| Here’s your hat!”
Sabra descended from the truck,
| bestowing a delicious smile upon its
| driver, who was grinning apprecia-
| tively.
“Oh, you needn't have—" Theron
| began. ;
| “And a jar of your own onions!
!interrupted Sabra, her dark eyes
| very bright as she handed them to
{ him.
“Miss Mason—Miss Salisbury,”
| Theron mumbled.
amused and slightly mocking smile
she turned upon Elisabeth.
“Won't you come in and meet my
mother and have some tea with
us?” he invited, instead.
She shook her head. The fashion
expert was clad, this day, in boys’
overalls. “I hadn't meant to come
to town, but Dirk wanted a drink,
so I hopped a truck. D’you know
where that Italian bootlegger hangs
out?”
Theron looked at her calmly. He
suspected that Miss Sabra Salisbury
was showing off for Elisabeth’s bene-
fit and Elisabeth like a little fool,
was watching Sabra, round-eyed.
“Come in with us, and I'll give you
a bottle of decent Scotch to take
back to him with my compliments,”
he said, and as she hesitated, “Oh,
don’t be an idiot!”
Elisabeth's round eyes
his face wonderingly.
Mrs. Flag, received her guest
without a flicker of surprise at her
costume, and sat her in a delicate
Adam chair. “I've enjoyed your
father’s work so much, Miss Salis-
bury,” she said pleasantly.
“You have?” said Sabra, faintly
stressing the pronoun.
“Precisely why should that sur-
prise you?” Theron inquired curtly.
Sabra started. “Why, I don’t
know. Dirk's work seems so0—so
crude, and your mother—”
Her confusion gave him a distinct
satisfaction, but his eyes remained
angry. ‘Don’t forget that it is peo-
ple like my mother who buy the
work of people like your father,” he
reminded her.
“Theron!” Mrs. Flagg protested.
““Miss Salisbury prefers that peo-
ple say what they think,” he told
his mother gently. And less gently,
“Don’t you?”
Sabra smiled at Mrs. Flagg.
all means. And may I say that I
think this is a very beautiful house?”
They got on fairly well after that,
though Theron was acutely con-
scious of Sabra’s amusement at his
mother and Elisabeth and the pret-
ty formality of their tea.
moved to
“Will you be here all summer,
Miss Salisbury?” Elisabeth asked,
her soft voice sounding suddenly,
to Theron, peculiarly colorless.
Sabra shrugged. “I don't know. I
haven’t any plans. One place is as
good as another, I suppose.”
Theron found himself remember-
ing one of her first remarks to him:
“I'm quite unhappy”’—Was it the
Hungarian?
He drove her home, not admitting
to himself the skill with which he
contrived not to have Elisabeth ac-
company them.
“That was a dumb little girl!”
said Sabra, and as he frowned, “Oh, |
Lord, is she
something ?”’
your sweetheart or
“No,” said Theron, and any doubts |
(he may have entertained on the sub-
ject of Elisabeth’s status were then
girl, and she isn’t dumb.
Sabra’s eyes were dancing, “Don't
apologize,” she murmured.
“I have never,” said Theron delib-
erately, “wanted to slap any human
beng as often as I have wanted to
slap you!”
“It must be love,” she said, and
vio-
lence was increased. “I always want
to sock people I like,”
and then fell into a reverie.
the Hungarian?
At her door she insisted that he
come in and have a drink with Dirk.
The sculptor’s cordiality rose with
his first taste of Theron’s whiskey.
“Fine,” he rumbled. “Better have
Was it
| some, Sabra.”
She made a face at hm. “I hate
the stuff,” she said, and though it
was none of his affair, Theron was
glad.
She disappeared into the kitchen,
and the two men sat in the crazy |
[to dine with them, and the two wom- |
what a pretty speech from a solid len were sitting - indoors, the
| business man!” she cried, and clap- dainty and exquisite in gray organ-
{die, the younger already in a dinner |
coldly. | frock of blue crepe.
studio and had several drinks.
“You know,” said Theron abrupt-
ly, “you and Sabra give me a de-
cided pain! Just because I some-
times wear a boiled collar and have
(an office doesn’t mean that I have
| less appreciation of art than some
{and though its difference was the |
| He was, undeniably, yet he did not | difference between civilization and |
[think of himself in just the terms barbarity, he felt an unformulated
other fellow who needs a hair cut!”
Salisbury squinted at him. “So?”
he commented
‘So!” said Theron. “That Pan of
| yours is good, and I know it as |
The sculptor |
| well as anyone else.”
poured out two more dri nks.
| tinued Theron, “that's just as bad as
any social snobbery.
“Bravo!” cried Sabra,
turned to look at her.
She had changed into a dress, and
it was clean and French and im-
mensely becoming. She had pinned
up her heavy hair, and put on satin
silppers.
Her father looked at her, and then
roared with laughter. “I told you no
broken heart lasted more than a
month!”
“Oh, shut up!” said Sabra, and for
the first time Theron saw her blush.
Dirk Salisbury refilled Theron's
glass. “To Eros!”
Sabra glared at them as
drank. “Fools!” she said.
Theron’s fingers closed about the
bottle. “To Sabra,” he suggested.
and he
they
yet it was an undeniable fact that
he forgot completely that he was to
accompany Elisabeth to a dinner
party that evening. Again the
table was set out of doors, and
again the three sat, this time before
a fiery sunset, and ate good food and
washed it down with red wine.
“I hate you in clothes like that,”
Dirk Salisbury told his daughter.
Yet only the next afternoon, Elis- |
The girls shook hands, and Theron |
could have slapped Sabra for the
“By |
she added, !
“There's an artistic snobbery,” con- |
He did not feel that he was drunk, |
very becoming? said Ther,
i oared at him. *“ m-
| ge he demanded bee.
| erently. e
looks Yh like anybody else; and
| she isn’t like anybody else! Go on
land change it, Sabra.” She hesi-
| tated. “Go on!” he shouted, and
{ she went, yet Theron did not think
lit was entirely filial obedience which
impelled her. :
i Girls like to change their clothes,
and when she returned in a gypsyish
dress of plum-colored cotton with a
| cerise handkerchief tied about her
| white throat and her dark hair
hanging, he understood her father’s
| feeling. This was Sabra Salisbury.
| “Dresses ought to look worn—
lived in,” pronounced Salisbury.
| “1's
as much as painting.”
“You tell 'em,”
fashion expert indulgently.
“I know,” said the sculptor. “The
initial object of clothes, of course.”
Theron leaned back, enjoying him-
self, not considering it in the least
odd that he, Theron Flagg, _ should
be spending an evening discussing
women’s clothes. They had finish-
ed the hottle, and he was about to
suggest going back for
Sabra, he reflected pleasantly, could
ride with him—when the thought of
home brought up the thought of
Elisabeth and their engagement.
“Remember something?” Sabra
asked, at his exclamation.
“Lord, yes!” he said, getting up a
little unsteadily, and shaking Salis-
bhury’s hand.
“I wondered when you'd remem- |
ber,” she commented, at the door.
“What do you mean?”
She was smiling, and more than
ever he wanted to choke
she had known that he had an en-
gagement, if he or Elisabeth or his
mother had mentioned it in her
hearing that afternoon! She was
laughing, now, and he clutched her
with sudden violence and kissed her.
“That,” she said, in a cool voice,
“is the first time I was ever kissed
by a solid busines man. I had no
idea they'd do so well.”
They! This time the pressure of
his mouth upon hers bent her head
back so that she cried out; she
seemed very small and fragile in his
arms, and he wanted to hurt her,
and did. She was not laughing
when he released her, nor did she
seem angry. White-faced, with dark
eyes wide and lips trembling—
“I don’t know that I particularly
like you!” said Theron, and pushed
her hack into the house, and strode
to his car.
The morning brought several
| things to Theron beside a headache
and a bitter taste in his mouth. He
had seen Elisabeth the night before,
and she had found, and said that she
found, his conduct inexcusable. In
five minutes, the intimacy which had
existed between those two who had
known each other since
was swept away, like a bridge be-
fore a flood, and Theron knew that
there was no rebuilding it.
not unhappy, but infinitely sad, with
that melancholy which reminders of
the instability and frailty of human
relationships always bring.
His mother was definitely wound-
ed. Her son had not acted like a
gentleman; he had heen hoth drunk
and discourteous. There was no
excuse, no justification that he could .
offer her, nor did he try.
| He had—or perhaps he had not
| offended Sabra Salisbury. He did
not know. In any case, he felt that
he had
| whether for war or peace,
{was not yet sure that he
the alliance.
For the first time Theron become
consciously aware of a lack of emo-
tional kinship with Elisabeth; with
many things for which his mother
and home stood as symbols. But he
Aid not feel that he was part of that
other sort of living, that
slipshod, ungoverned
called “Bohemian.” He liked, he re-
flected, curtains at windows and
damask on tables; he liked women
to be gentle-spoken, and men to
speak gently in their presence.
His headache and his tangled
| thoughts drove him out of doors; his
car, almost of its own volition,
drove him to the Salisburys’ house.
He was sitting in it wishing he had
wanted
not come, when Salisbury hailed
him.
“Come on in. Sabra’s gone to
New York.”
Theron’s confused brain sought to
discover his reaction to that infor-
mation. Was he glad or sorry ?
“She got a telegram from that
Hungarian lover of hers” —Salisbury
| qualified the musician with adjec-
| tives which Theron somehow approv-
{
| ed—‘and hopped the morning train. !
{He needs her!” The booming voice
| was contemptuous.
| So it had not been because of last
| night that she was gone! He had
flattered himself, reflected Theron
| grimly, by thinking that,
_ Salisbury brought out the wine
Jug, and the two men sat down be-
(neath the vine which gives wine.
“Women are queer animals,” said
| the sculptor. “Take Sabra.” He
laughed suddenly. “Don't you take
her!” he interrupted himself. “She's
not for you.”
“Why not?” Theron inquired.
Why don’t dogs mate with cats?”
| Salisbury retorted. It's almost bio-
‘logical. I don’t know how many
(kinds of people there are in this
| world, but sometimes I think there
are only two. Artists and non-
| artists. = And they mix just like oil
|and water.”
| “Rot!
| said Theron flatly. “There
{you go again,”
| “It's true,” said Salisbury, unper-
| turbed. “Sabra’s not an artist, Boat
| she has the artistic
Besides which, she’s one of those
poor unfortunate women who are
constitutionally incapable of caring
for any man who is—one might al-
most say whole! She was
mother weaklings.” ab
“She's strong, isn’t she?”
: “Strong!” cried her father. “She's
like a well-built ship, like one of the
clippers that used to sail out of this
harbor. Strong and sturd -
pendable.” dy ad ds
Theron,
Dirk Salisbury looked at him in-
“And they need color and form just |
suggested the |
another— |
her. If
childhood |
He was :
allied himself with her
and he!
careless, |
life which is’
tently. “In love with her, aren't
you?”
“Am I" Theron had never talked g,
with a man or a woman in hig life,
“Why doesn’t she marry this Lup-
esco?”
Salisbury shrugged his great
shoulders. “What does he want
with a wife? He'll probably marry
{her ultimately—when he’s sick op
broke or a failure. It's the only
way he’ll get her, and he's beginning
to realize it.”
“Why do you think she wouldn't
be happy married to me?” Theron
inquired.
“You've seen her here,” said Salis.
bury. “Can you see her happy in
your setting? Can you see her pay-
ing calls and being polite to the
proper people and entertaining your
| business friends?”
Theron obediently tried to gee
| Sabra in those roles, and found the
| phantom disturbingly lovely and de-
| sirable. Sabra across his dinner
table; Sabra in a white kitchen:
Sabra in a garden— :
“Look here!” he said, sipping his
wine. “You talk about form
form in art, form in dress. What's
the matter with form in living ?
Why shouldn’t the accessories of life
hold as much beauty and order of
form as anything else? If you strip
away too much of symmetry from ga
{work of art, it loses out. Why can't
you see that living bears the same
loss ?”
Never had Theron Flagg talked
like this, and the morning wore in-
to afternoon, and the sun commenc-
ed its decent.
Sabra was gone for a week, and
Theron and Dirk talked almost
| daily, talked for long, tireless hours,
far into the nights.
“I like you, Theron,” Salisbury
told him. “You've got imagination.
In a way, I'm sorry that none of
your children will call me grand-
pa—and wouldn't I break their little
necks if they did!”
Theron laughed, and then was
silent. His children—He looked at
Dirk Salisbury oddly. Men, he knew,
sometimes thought of women as
potential mothers for their sons; it
was strange to think of a man as
a potential grandfather. Strange for
Theron to be thinking of children
at all. He was thirty-two years
old, and never, until this moment,
had he given the prolonging of the
Flagg line a thought.
During her absence, his thoughts
of Sabra had held a paradoxically
impersonal quality. He had thought,
and even spoken, of love and mar-
| riage in conjunction with her; he
(had pictured her, in turn, a wife,
companion and mother. Yet it was
not until he stood face to face with
her again that he realized that he
loved her, was in love with her,
(head over heels, madly, completely,
as he had never expected to be in
love with any woman.
The realization made him at first
awkward and unhappy. Here, before
him, was Sabra Salisbury, again in
the faded black dress in which he
had first seen her, and now he lov-
ed her and wanted to marry her.
He looked helplessly into her eyes,
trying to read them. What had gone
on in New York betmeen her and
his unknown rival; how did she
compare him, Theron Flagg, with
that other?
At least, one could be frank with
{ Sabra; such a short time of know-
ing this father and daughter had
taught Theron the advantage of
openness and directness.
Dirk Salisbury was working, and
Theron and Sabra moved once again
to the shelter of the green lilacs.
“Sabra, I'm going to tell you this
now, and then, if you want, we can
let it wait for a while,” he said.
She looked at him evenly, smiling.
“I love you,” he said, “more than I
thought I could ever love anyone.
I want you to marry me.”
Her face did not change; her
smile was steady. She put out her
| hands. “All right, Theron,” she said
softly, and then burst into laughter.
| “Darling,” she cried, “don’t look so
‘startled! Didn't you mean it? Was
I supposed to say no?”
“Do you mean it?” he asked.
| “You'll marry me? Right away?”
| She nodded, her eyes. still laugh-
ling at him. “It's very humiliating
|to see you so-taken aback. Should
|I have been coy?”
| The New Englander indulged him-
self in several bromidic extrava-
gances to which Sabra responded
{with tenderness and warmth. He
{adored her; he had never been so
(happy in his life. He would be good
| to her always; he wasn't worth her
little finger and he knew it.
“Do you honestly love me?” he
asked, still incredulous.
{ Her face, a little flushed now,
| was beautiful. “I do love you—oh,
(80 much!” she said. “I think I
loved you right away, Theron.” Her
hands moved over his head, his face.
“I love your hair, the color of it
and the feel of it and the way it
grows,” she chanted, her voice tak-
ing on that singsong it had had
{ when he first heard it. “I love your
gray eyes, and all the lights that
come into them. I love your nose
and ”"
“For the love of heaven!” sail
Dirk Salisbury, coming, as Theron
once had come, about the lilac clump,
and standing, a baffled Jove, his
very beard quivering with surprise.
Sabra glanced at him. ‘“And I
love your cheeks and your chin and
most especially your “mouth,” she
continued. “Go in and sculp, Dirk.
We don't want you around here!”
Salisbury sat down. “All right,”
he said, “Im through! I don't know
anything about women.”
_ Theron grinned, a little self-con-
scious, a little foolish, yet entirely
temperament. | ha,
“If that rude man would get out,”
said Sabra to Theron, “I could go
on like that indefinitely—you dar-
ling!”
Recklessly, Theron kissed her.
Salisbury groaned. “What did you
do with the hungry Hungarian,
Sabra?”
His daughter looked at him bright-
ly. “Not that it's any of your busi-
ness. But for Theron’s benefit I'll
tell you both that Jan did me the
exceptional honor of asking me to
(Continued on page 7, Col. 2.)
&