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Show B A Wooden Rival. Lunch was over and the people in the propor- tion of nineteen women to one man were stream-B stream-B ing out of the hotel dining-room and choosing B seats on the broad piazzas where the cool, green-striped green-striped awnings protected sensitive eyes from the reflected fflare of the waters of the Sound. The day was as bright as the multitude was dull, and the woman in that shade of green which has turned half our female population into human lettuces allowed her hands to fall idly in her lap. "My mind," she began, "is an absolute blank. The only intellectual feat of which I am at present pres-ent capable is the recital of my name, my address, ad-dress, and the nature of my husband's business. I could pose as a model for Unrelieved Stupidity at any minute of this current day." She looked appealingly at her companion as if begging her I not to claim the wheels of her intellectual ma-I ma-I chinery were also clogged. "Do tell me some- I thing interesting," she begged. "It would be too II terrible if we were both stricken with imbecility IS on the same day." 1 The other woman smiled with good-humored H toleration of her friend's mood. fl ' "I haven't a single idea," she began. Then her l eyes happening to fall upon the slim, well-kept If hands of her neighbor, she assumed an alert exit ex-it pression and continued: "Yes, I have, too. It i is a story told me by a woman who does my hands when I'm at home. The sight of your rather pretty digits has suggested it to me. Do you wish to hear it?" "Do I wish to hear it? My dear, if you should happen to glance at my face during the course I of your narrative you will note the gradual disappearance dis-appearance of my eyes, nose, mouth and chin. You may tell the curious that they have retired in favor of my ears. I shall be in fact all ears." i "The prospect is not alluring," returned the i modern Sheherazade. "I have an uneasy feeling I that your husband may blame me for the trans-I trans-I formation, but then both he and I will have com-; com-; pensation in the fact that as your ear increases i in area, even so will your value as a listener be multiolied. "Now, for the story. Do you believe there are people so sensitively organized that a certain I color can affect them to the point of losing consciousness?" con-sciousness?" "No," returned the other, "I don't. I've heard j of such cases, but to my mind they are mere instances in-stances of extreme affectation on the part of those claiming to be so afflicted. "That," resumed the story-teller, "is where my manicure would disagree with you. She has her ofllce opposite the windows of one of New York's largest department stores. Daily when the store opens for business, she sees the shades roll up on j the ten or twelve wooden ladies who have been I standing so patiently in the window all night, never daring to lie down for fear of rumpling H their dainty Paris gowns. It is with one of these H m .story deals. Its color was yellow, of a pecu- H liar shade, and the effect its appearance in the K window had on the manicure's assistant was pro- K nounced. She gave one look at the window where I H the 'dresser was trying to stand the 'yellow' lady H on her unsteady feet. The she fainted quietly B away. When she revived she told her employer II the cause of her 'collapse. She insisted that if she B hdd to endure the sight of that particular shade B of yellow she 'would faint, and as fainting as a B Pastime did not appeal to her she would be com-B com-B lulled to resign her place unless her little table B was removed to a spot where the objectionable B diess would be beyond her range of vision. This K was done, and one day (the manicure announced B to her assistant that she might bring -her tahle . B back to the window. The dress was sold at any B rate it wasn't on view any more. Even the ob- J B vious cause of her dipcomfort removed, the spirits B of the assistant did not improve. Ever since her first fainting spell she had steadily lost ground her color grew less, her appetite entirely deserted her, and she seemed on the verge of nervous prostration. pros-tration. She was a nice girl, and her employer was seriously concerned. "One rainy morning, as the manicure hastened to her office, she noticed with dismay that the yellow dress was back in the window. Evidently it hadn't been sold after all. She hurried upstairs to warn the assistant and prevent a recurrence of the previous mishap. Imagine her surprise and' indignation when she beheld the object of her solicitude calmly engaged in looking straight across at the cause of all the trouble and looking better than she had for three weeks. Her employer em-ployer directed a rather penetrating gaze at the erstwhile 'fainter.' " 'That was the yellow gown at which you were staring when I came in, was it not?' she asked pointedly. "Then the resistant made confession. There was a finality about her tone which made it apparent ap-parent that she vas not vitally concerned as to what the outcome of the conversation might be. She had been perfectly truthful in her claim that the sight of the yellow dress made her lose consciousness, con-sciousness, but as to why it did so she had been well, reticent, to say the least. "The facts of the case were these: She had been engaged to be married to a young man whom her eloquent tongue proclaimed as the sum of all the virtues. They had quarreled. The quarrel quar-rel had visibly affected her health and spirits, and on the evening preceding the advent of the yellow yel-low dress her brother had insisted on her accompanying accom-panying him to the theater. Theie in the row ahead sat her quandam lover, and with him one of the prettiest fe.i'ls she had ever seen. The vision vis-ion wore yellow, of the exact shade which the firm opposite were displaying in the window. She had a sleepless night and a breakfastless morning. Is it any wonder then that her overtaxed over-taxed nerves gave way when the uprolling shade seemed to reveal to her a wooden effigy of her rival, come to gloat over her? How were matters mat-ters now? Oh, they were all adjusted, and she was much happier than she deserved to be. "Who was the girl with him? That was the wife of his cousin from Indianapolis. They were in New York on their wedding tour. The bridegroom bride-groom was kept home from the theater by a prosaic pro-saic (but not unfeeling) toothache, and the girl was as dear as she was pretty. "As for yellow. It was the most beautiful color. The telegram that announced that he was coming to call and she must see him was written on yellow paper. No, she hadn't fainted when she saw it. Yes, they were to be married in August. Would her employer attend the ceremony? She would, and she did. "Furthermore she wore yellow." Mary Dobbins Dob-bins Prior, in New York Times. |
