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