Bellefonte, Pa., February 19, 1982.
nn —————
LET US SMILE
The thing that goes the farthest toward
making life worth while,
That costs the least and does the most,
is just a pleasant smile,
The smile that bubbles from a heart that
loves its fellow men,
Will drive away the clouds of gloom
and coax the sun again.
It's full of worth and goodness, too, with |
manly kindness blent—
It's worth a million dollars, and
doesn’t cost a cent.
it
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—
worth a million dollars,
doesn’t cost a cent.
It's 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 to the
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,
doesn't cost a cent.
heart-
and it
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-
made an incongruous trio. Pas-
serg-by, had there been any on this
sandy and little-traveled 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.
i
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 shrubsor
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
And for what reason do your pretty
eyes fill and overflow?” The voice
paused. “Onins, my girl! A broken
art, 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, loveis
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- |
| said.
‘ flavor.
| smarted.
eccentric.
“My name's Theron Flagg,"
“And—"
“Do sit
stand the onions!”
He sat on the grass.
said. an offer which rised him
more than it did her.
pickled onions well enough; in a dry
cocktail a small onion lent a subtle
tle about a bushel of onions.
“Self-protection?” the girl sug-
, smiling. “But think of your
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
down,” she interrupted trimmed
him, and added politely, “If you can neath
i
“Give me were no delicacies
‘a knife and I'll help peel em,” he precision of arrangement, no decora-
!
i
But there was nothing sub-
Sabra There
a
tion of flowers. Plates were piled,
He liked knives and forks dropped in a heap,
three thick glasses set one
the other.
within
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
‘and a touch of saffron. The salad,
insulting to ladies,
and in view of the girl's faded and |
undeniably dirty dress,
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 omon, and his eyes
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,
the remark
‘and content.
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
you?” 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. I'm chairman
of the membership committee and
“That"s it!" she interrupted him
triumphantly.
like a chairman! When I first saw
you, I thought: No, it's not brushes;
it's not books. He's not working
his way through Sollege, 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-
, “ha . to a life membership
f . :
Foy te of his irritation, he laugh-
ed.
man to you, but you don’t look like
“You know, you look!
“Eighteen-hole golf course,
hea 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
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 pages of
Du Maurier or Murger. A tremen-
dous man,
throated, who roared and pounded
and could not speak a dozen consec-
utive words tuned to the ears of a
Sunday-school class.
“Bating’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 cigaret and
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
“thrown,” reflected Theron, was
almost literally the word.
had been pounded down and jagged
cracks and seams remained on floor
and ceiling where they had stood.
*
“Well, I may look like a chair-
a country club member to me! How-
ever—"
“However, my onions are getting
led,” she said beghtly. “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.
his stopping, and they peeled in
silence for almost tee minutes.
«x
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
bury's daughter,” she said. Theron
had heard that, too. He peeled
another onion. “Don't cry!” she
murmured, in the coaxing voice one
uses to a small child. “I'm Sabra
Salisbury.”
At one end, a couch, two chairs
and a table looked like pigmy fur-
niture;
nor rugs. The rest was stone and
clay and tools and great sheeted
figures, the sculptor’'s workship.
Fittingly, it ‘was a giant Pan
on which Salisbury was
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"
She did not suggest
presume,” he said, “that you
|
down your cheeks seen here are not ail Dirk Salis-
|
|
|
i
“We'd be awfully pleased to have
your father a member of the club”
said Theron.
“I should think you would!" Sabra
retorted. “H r, he woulda't.”
“And yourself?” Theron asked.
She at him. “You just
| said that I don't look like a country-
club member.”
good
if he'd go back for it.
“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
wanted to turn ‘and walk out of
their house, but he had eaten their
food, and whether they were civil or
not, at least he would thank his
hostess before he departed.
“It was good of you to let me
shay. he told her—after Salisbury
suddenly seized his chisel and
uested them both to get out.
he smiled and put out her hand
decisively. “Good-by.”
It was plainly enough a dismissal,
and again Theron flushed, more with
anger than confusion. He bowed
briefly and strode off. It was not
until he reached the car that he
realized he had left his hat.
was a hat, but he was hanged
He started
“hig motor and drove off.
‘and serene when he entered it: pleas-
ant dignity of ivory
The singer was sitting cross- “That,” he returned, ‘“‘is the coun-
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 bow! at her left, and she was |
wielding a knife
“Yes, my dear,”
damn yourself! It is not as though
you had to pickle onions. Of your
y.
own Tee will, ipelied BY yodr Sun |
low tastes—" rubbed a bare
arm across her face, and looked up
with tear-filled black eyes at Theron. the New gina
“Now just how long have you been
standing there?” she demanded in-
dignantly. Theron flushed.
a minute.”
“Well, why dint 0 call out—
fool?” she asked, angry, and
“I'm sorry,” “I...”
His errand seemed suddenly absurd.
: u like pickled onions?” she
uired, and added, rather fiercely,
“You don't look as if you 3”
“I'm wild about them,” stated
Theron, and suddenly she smiled and
her e face was 10 y
“I'm peeling with in my
eyes!” she announced. * pearl
an onion and onion a tear.”
She looked up at swiftly. “Do
you think I'm crazy?”
» fie thought had entered Theron’s
“I'm truly not,” she answered, be-
fore he could reply. “I'm quite
unhappy!” Her smile flashed again;
she seemed amused as much at her-
self as at him, and she sat, staring
quite frankly, inspec him from
his Panama to his feet. “I never
saw such white shoes!” she said.
Theron looked down at them.
new.” he explained. “They
wont be so. white long.”
“‘Oh, both my shoes are shiny
“Only | been merchants
try club's loss.”
Her laughter heightened. “Why
what a pretty speech from a
business man!” she cried, and clap-
her hands.
Tehron looked at her
ness man?” he asked.
“Aren't you?” she said.
He was, unden
think of hims
her words and
53
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| Theron now
:
i
the days of
|
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:
i
sail for foreign
g, con
y
i ‘booming from
{lilac clump announced
| Salisbury was—to such-and-such
| this-and-that was not
? Then Salisbury
5
5
i
|
|
£
:
:
;
i
i
i
Behe: , thundering out ejaculations
couched in even less elegant terms
remark.
LT oll sharp-
p
1 and ‘Theron thougat that ste was
e 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 Jnto the house.
5 7
“Lord, Tm tired;
the |
fously.
|
|
i
{
|
ol you | ooiat makes you think I'm a busi- | far
‘and though its diffe
1_to garbed for
CA
His own home seemed
t and ma-
hogany, soft rugs fine chintzes.
His mother had asked Elizabe
Mason—who was not his fiancee—
to dine with them, and the two wom-
en were sitting indoors, the elder
dainty and exquisite in gray
die, the younger already in a
dinner
coldly. frock of blue crepe. It seemed very
from that spot beneath a
grapevine, as far as the South
was the
difference between ci tion and
barbarity, he felt an unformulated
lack in his own setting.
At dinner, the excellent New Eng-
land food, hot raised biscuits and a
roast with Yorkshire pud , cried
out to him its lack of and
Jiugh ine-=which he kusw. waa-ab:
“Do we ever use garlic, Mother?"
he asked. .
son. Nellie always ru the aod
bowl with a kernel. Why?”
That launched him on the Salis-
ly.
“Do tell me about Sabra Sal's
ry,” she said, when he paused.
did she have on?”
“The dirtiest
Theron chuckled.
black dress I ever saw!”
was funny, Elizabeth told
listened in some
|
meet her. Couldn't Theron take
her to call?
Theron
full-bearded and full-
Walls |
there were neither curtains’
and |
it!
th |
organ- ly, “you
d a jar of your own onions!”
rrupted Sabra, her dark eyes
bright as she handed them to
| Theron mumbled.
| The girls shook hands, and Theron
could have slapped Sabra for the
‘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. Flagg 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 S080
crude, and your mother-—-"
Her confusion gave him a distinct
satisfaction, but his eyes remained
an “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,”
moved to
“Don't you?”
Sabra smiled at Mrs. Flagg. “By
all means. And may I say that I
think this is a very beautiful house?”
They got on fairly well after that,
thcugh Theron was acutely con-
scious of Sabra's amusement at his
mother and Elisabeth and the pret-
ty formality of their tea.
“Will you be here all
Miss Salisbury?"
{her soft voice sounding suddenly,
to Theron, peculiarly colorless.
Sabra shrugged. “I don't know. I
summer,
good as another, I su “a
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- and
‘excuse, no justification that he could
little girl!" |
said Sabra, and as he frowned, “Oh,
company them.
“nat was a dumb
Lord, is she your
something 7"
sweetheart or
he may have entertained on the sub-
ject of Elisabeth's status were then
and there dispelled. “But she’s a nice
girl, and she isn't dumb.
Sabra's eyes were dancing, “Don’t
” 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
| his desire to do her physical vio-
lence was increased. “I always want
| to sock e I like,” she added,
and then fell into a reverie. Wasit
the H ’
At her door she insisted that he
{ come in and have a drink with Dirk.
The sculptor’s cordiality
‘his first taste of Theron's whiskey.
| “Fine,” he rumbled. “Better have
some, Sabra.”
| She made a face at hm.
‘and the two men sat in the crazy
' studio and had several drinks.
| “You know,” said Theron abrupt-
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 uppredigtion of art than some
| other who needs a hair cut!”
| Salisbury
‘he commen
{ "Sol" 4aid Py I That Pan of
| yours good, ar now it as
‘well as anyone else.” The sculptor
poured out two more dri nks.
“There's an artistic snobbery,” con-
tinued Theron, “that's just as bad as
any social snobbery.
father looked at her, and then
roared with laughter. “I told you no
hroken heart more a
month!”
“Oh, shut up!” said Sabra, and for
the first time Theron saw her blush.
Dirk refilled Theron's
glass. “To 4
Sabra
bottle. A
He did not feel that ire NY
yet it was an undeniable fact that
he forgot completely that he was to
accompany Elisabeth to a dinner
y that evening.
table
he told
his mother gently. And less gently,
Elisabeth asked, |
haven't any plans. One place is as
+ relati
“No,” said Theron, and any doubts
rose with
“I hate
the stuff,” she said, and though it
was none of his affair, Theron was
She disappeared into the kitchen,
squinted at him. “So?” | nigh
ted
at him. “Becom-
to what?” he demanded
‘Becoming how?
She
She hesi-
Theron did not think
obedience which
their clothes,
and
| cerise handkerchief tied about her
| feeling. This was Sabra Salisbury.
ought to look worn—
pronounced Salisbury.
need color and form just
t
i
fashion expert indulgently.
“iy 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,
be spending an evening discussing
women's clothes. They had finish-
ed the bottle, and he was about to
suggest going back for another
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-
bury’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 her. If
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 back 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 inti which had
existed between those two who had
known each other since childhood
was swept away, like a bridge be-
fore a flood, and Theron knew that
there was no rebuilding it. He was
not unhappy, but infinitely sad, with
that melancholy which reminders of
the instability and frailty of human
always bring.
His m r was definitely wound-
Led.
gentleman; he had been both drunk
discourteous. There was no
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 allied himself with her
whether for war or , and he
was not yet sure that hie wanted
the alliance.
Yor 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
did not feel that he was part of that
‘other sort of living, that careless,
slipshod, rned life which is
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 he had
‘not come, when ry
mation. Was he glad or sorry?
| “She got a telegram from
IH lover of hers”—Salisbury
‘q the musician with adjec-
tives which Theron somehow appeoy-
ed—“and hopped the morning
He needs her!” The
was contemptuous.
So it had not been because of last
t 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 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, but
she has the artistic temperament.
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 born to
mother weaklings.”
“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 sturdy and de-
pendable.”
To Salisbury looked at him in-
“It's very becoming,” said Theron.
roared
and |
painting.
'‘em,” suggested the
should
‘had first seen her, and now helov-
ied her and wanted to
He looked hel
| trying to
i
Her son had not acted like a
that |
booming voice,
tently. “In love with her, aren't
you?”
“Am I” Theron had never talked sc
with a man or a woman in his life
“Why doesn't she marry this Lup-
| esco?"
| Salisbury shrugged his real
with a wife? He'll probably marry
ber ultimately —when he's sick or
not ure. a lt Se inniog i
| way ge ' 's
| to realize it.”
i "Way do you sulk she wouldn't
ppy marri me?” Theron
hy
| “You've seen her here,” said Salis-
bury. “Can you see her happy in
| your setting? Can you see her pay-
Tew
|p r people entertai
| business trie > BIE your
Theron obediently tried to see
| Sabra in those roles, and found the
| phantom disturbingly lovely and de-
| sirable. Sabra across his dinner
table; Sabra in a white kitchen;
|Savia in a garden—
“Look here!” he said, sipping his
wine. “You talk ry a
{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 a
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 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
| Jove 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
tor” ap
y y
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
t 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
1 supposed to say no?”
“Do you mean it?" he asked.
| “You'll me? Right away?"
She her eyes still laugh-
| ing at him. “It's very humiliating
to see you so taken .aback. Should
been coy?”
New Englander indulged him-
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a little self-con-
scious, a little foolish, yet entirely
happy. "
“If that rude man would get out,
said Sabra to Theron, “I could go
oO like that indefinitely—you dar-
”
Recklessly, Theron kissed her.
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)