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Show 1 HIS NEW I YEAR'S GIFT j 1 i E Is THOUGH it was yet afternoon the studio was like twilight. The reflecting colors of pictures, the red restfulness of a divan, the stained curtains for models, the disorder dis-order hinting a thousand temperamental tempera-mental hours, the blotched floor, the elegance become interesting and tawdry taw-dry an atmosphere which suggested the' lingering of moments it all seemed apart from the day outside, from the north light peering above a half-rolled blind. The artist-occupant sat examining some drawings. He was strongly built, in his early thirties, not handeome, but with eyes remarkable for their glance. His face had the brooding, sensitive quality. The drawings, Impressions Im-pressions in wash and crayon, which he went over slowly and of which there were scores, presented an art that only few have been capable of. He had caught character and life in a thousand moods and stories, had done it with that intimacy which cannot can-not be denned. He finished the drawings draw-ings with .something of a sigh, then with somethins of a smile as his eyea -dwelt on v -picture set on an easel. ' Slowly his face filled with mocking The Painting Was That of a Young Woman. satire. The painting was that of a young, worna!? jJwTu afmosFTrra-diance. afmosFTrra-diance. It seemed to portray, not flesh and blood, but the thousand '.things of feeling which the blood served, the throbbing music which is .played on temperament. The character char-acter was conceived and translated poetically, but its very nuances were striking because of the grasp of the artist. Yet did one fancy it did the smile on the Hps change with an indefinable inde-finable stain to what was coarse and light even as you looked at it? Had Hastings' repeated gloatings of satire wrought thiB subtle difference in a thing done so tenderly? Or had his "brush unintentionally brought out beneath be-neath everything the feminine eternal that would not be t'enied, in the flux of bloom shown the nestling worm? In the varied mystery of life in which nothing dies,, where perhaps even thoughts become colors of flowers, who can know or dispute anything? It was New Year's day and the afternoon aft-ernoon was melting away. Hastings threw himself on the couch and for a long time rested, regarding the painting paint-ing with a changing aspect. The gray-oess gray-oess of a thousand days seemed to settle set-tle over him, of drifting and not earwig, ear-wig, yet carrying downward with him that gift supreme, of knowing that teauty was the necessary dream, but that the world and woman always made of It a lie, that truth could be poken of only after money. He could think in those terms and yet he did not altogether. His r.eed to appreciate appreci-ate was too strong. In art, at least, he could follow iife ra tone, however deeply and personally he understood Us irony. But he was no longer sure, that he cared t0 f0uow it. The laugh and bitterns js of the intervals must increase. ll9 Would become a dilet-V"!!6' dilet-V"!!6' .8lorU Perhaps, but careless. And he wouw be careless, that 1' , Worst it. At any rate e, ,uld "lr desuetude with a bright aspect, could gamble like a good fellow what wa3 left- He would not appear hard hit At this point ae invariably added a Postscript to hi, thinking. If she had only cared ior the otner man. He could bear that and have gone on. Efte,r ma5 times previously con-' con-' her for him. she had stood there thai day they had parted ZZlTMhS S8) d sta'ed so bus, nesshke and ,h immovable noT " woman must marry ComiL f fr er own sake." and fr'H was unimaginable out l a I"1851 uld not PiDt own blimu money 0t,her very soon a euccess ust ome 1st honP ,hat 11 waS h'8 great' breach- k wait for. him.. She Enewabe things as, she made no a,md her- Hehre was none H her bea"Se" the thoutatemcnt killed even erced. if wa9 bemg C0 ble for l.in only left it possi-tor possi-tor hlni to lhink 'beautifully of -i her. Nothing else mattered quits bc much as that. And yet he did think beautifully of her in spite of everything, every-thing, though he could not but think in the terms of her own. statement last. But it was "all in the game." A man must laugh at those things, whatever what-ever the laugh did to him. He was facing another year today, that was all, and her marriage to the other man took place that night. A black cat came out of the corner, washing its face in the center of the room. A homeless kitten, it had appeared ap-peared the first day she had come, stealing in the door at the time of her departure. He had kept it as an omen of good luck and more. That was something like nine months ago, if such time could ever be reckoned by calendar. She had told him then that she was a model, but had refused to pose for him without drapes. Who she really was he had found out weeks later. It was too late then, for he had fallen in love with her. There was a knock at the door, and he went to open it. Stanton, the editor ed-itor of a powerful weekly, entered. He stalked around the room as one with something to unload, and, at length, flinging himself on the couch, proceeded proceed-ed brusquely: "Hastings, you're an awful ass, and because it was New Year's I dropped in to tell you about it. Ten weeks ago your picture won highest honors at the London exhibit. ' Two weeks later you repeated in the Metropolitan with another picture. But . you have not been acting like a successful man, but to the regret of your friends, like a sloth and a fool. A couple of the boys have seen you beastly drunk. You have shut yourself away from everyone and everything. You are being be-ing reviewed by every important journal jour-nal in the country, and yet you mope around as though you were your own lackey. There are one or two of us have begun to think it is a woman. We do not know of any woman but that cussed portrait is always sitting there. And I do believe the thing lives." Hastings laughed a little. "It is purely fanciful," ho said, "not really a portrait. And, of course, it is absurd to think of a woman in the matter, I suppose that I have not been quite well. Let us have a drink, because it's New Year." "I'll be hanged if I will, Hastings I believe you have been drinking toe much. I have got to go now. I just turned in for a minute. But do noi forget what I have said." "I will not forget, Stanton; anc thanks for your Interest. We cannot sometimes explain ourselves to our selves." After Stanton had gone he took oui his watch. It was five o'clock, anc she was to be marr' '; Hi would sit in the rey Act which , TT .on 5, township Si6eP; H! tW"west do hereby h about about twentlon t0 make final T jSJL2ZSL-e-1mvea sand wich first and put the decanter o! claret beside him. Claret always hac a tendency to make him sleep, particu Iarly if he put a little sugar in it. He did these things, but it took him houn to drowse off, and only after he hac turned the portrait on the easel. , It seemed but a minute had passed when he awoke. Of course he knew that he was not awake, that he was dreaming. Someone was- weeping soft ly on his shoulder, caressing his hair Only one woman on earth had thai aroma of person If anywhere in the world he found one of her hairs and touched his cheek with it he would have known to whom it belonged Then her eyes, penitent and wet with tears, came around, slowly meeting his With a start he realized that he wat awake. He held her looking at hei as something to marvel at. She ex plained it all in a whispered breath. "1 could not do it, Paul," she said. "1 ran away from them, from them all, Will you will you marry me now dear tonight?" He looked and saw that she wore i. wedding gown. "There never was a minute when 1 would not," he replied. San Francisco Argonaut. BEST WISHES. Unfortunate Old Gentleman What's that you said? The Kid Oh, I only, wuz wishin' you a happy New Year. The Dying Year. The year is dying away like the sound of 1)6113; the wind passes ovei the stubble and finds nothing tc move; only the red berries of the slender tree seem as if they would fain remind us of something cheerful and the measured beat of the thresh er's flail calls up the thought that ir the dry and fallen year lies much o! the nourishment of life. Goetha |