OCR Text |
Show II l Zoe Beckley's Story To Clean White Straw Hat Which Is ! Streaked To Clean White Dressed Kid Gloves Cotton I Frock Made for Dog Days The Housegown Model. Ill J As the train moved out of the sta ; tion bearing Wanda from the sight o I David and Cora Temple each turne' l j( Impulsively and looked into the otr- I ' er's face. In Cora's eyes were hot' !' composure and a vivid eagerness. Sin t had met a distressing situation with V rare courage and wisdom. This gave i. her calmness. But she wns David's wife. And a wife, according to Cora's r philosophy, had always to fight the ' disadvantage of familiarity, of being ,a legal possession something a man 'couldn't easily get away from. , She longed to know her generosity : had not be enwasted, her confidence I 1 In David not misplaced. She won- j dered, oh! how she wondered, If his love really was hers, all hers, only ; hers. That was what put a feverish eagerness into her gaze. , Then so suddenly that it took her : breath and shot a wondrous, old- I time thrill through her from head to J foot David took her In his arms and kissed her. People In the busy railway rail-way station supposed the pair to have met after a long absence and misled In the friendly, understanding fashion of humans who dote upon a little ! flashing 'touch of nature." To Cora the embrace and kiss spoke the whole story. She would almost have been content with that, without I words or further reassurance. To !' David, however, whose masculine na- I ture demanded concrete tokens, words ! were necessary and immediately so. : "Come in girl, core of my heart," i he whispered, catching her arm and I hustling her toward the nearest exit, "let's take a long tramp through the j hills. I want to talk to you, dear." I Cora's spirit sang within her. "You I I needn't, Dave, dear old lad," she whls- 1 pered hack, squeezing his hand under- j standingly. 'Don't you suppose I know . what you're going to sayv You're I j going to blame yourself, for one thing; ! and you musn't do It, Davy. The whole j , wholn whole chapter, dear, was in- evltable somehow. The best of it Is." I i sho hurried on earnestly, "that we've all got something good out of it, . That's the splendid part. I'll con- ; j fees, laddie, I put in some hideous hours of worry while I was in New York." David winced, and she continued vlthout giving him a chance to break t: 'You see, things have to be paid or. "Wanda did me a very great ser Ice. And It wns only right that I should take the risk of the price beln? high. Oh, I don't mean that Wanda exacted a price. She has been splen did. I morrn that Fate exacts a price For everything. Always. You don't get something -for nothing, Davy, Of ten a woman pays very dearly when she enters the market I entered. Fot I was buying something enormously valuable you! Your love. Your liberty lib-erty of action Your future. Or perhaps per-haps I ought to say ours. "I needed help desperately, David. And I ran the chance of paying highly for it." If Wanda had been a different sort well, she isn't. She's the best sort In the world." "Yes, my darling girl, she Is." David spoke with intense feeling. 'But she isn't isn't my sort. No one oh this earth Is exactly my sort, Cora, but you. If I could only make you know how clearly I see that now, dearest! We've all "learned a lot by this this chapter as you call it the Bretts and Wanda and you and I. "But I believe I've learned the most. Cora. For I've learned the soul of you, the true heart of you, the fine, fine, quality of you, my own girl. There is something I feel for you that wasn't there before. A sort of of reverence, maybe. Oh, I'm making an awful mess of trying to tell you, dear." He stopped a moment, groping for adequate words. "Just as a certain something went out of my feeling for Wanda on the last evening I saw her alone, a certain soihethlng has come into my love for you. I can't explain It. I guess I'll just have to live It. We're going to start fresh, my little wife. We're going to be happier than we have aver been." |