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Show '. A TRICK;' OF FATE ' wB& by INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE. SSiSi J iag. J)) - lazily helped it with wood or allowed it to flicker out. "Gracious! you arc doing the thing up brown!" he said irrelevantly once, gazing about the queer room with its faded magnificence. '"Of course, I am," she said. 'Fancy I'm the only boarder in this wonderful old mausoleum ! They were simply driven to 11 it's the 'Last of the Knickerbocker' business again." lie did a great deal of the talking, for 'till the strangling, thrillingly sweet shyness that. his proximity meant cm eloped her in a blinding mist. It was torture to meet his eves. Always it meant the sudden sweep downward of her lashes and the immediate answering quiver of her lips. He had guessed all this, she conjectured, con-jectured, far he amused himself by holding fier eves with his until the torment, drowning the rapture there, made mute appeal to him Then he would turn his ga:c away, only to return, fascinated, to the charge again. At such times the throb in her throat was so strong, and the pounding of her heart so fierce, that it seemed as if her voice would nccr come when she attcnp'cd ' to speak. Fortunately they had. much to say at first abort the people in Worcester who, Crane acknowledged, had Riven him the time of his life in that pkwant week' two years ago. She could tell him much for, until their corn and we're going to make some pop-corn." Before ihc could catch her breath, the door closed again. Her mirth at tbc thought of trying to buy a corn-popper corn-popper on Broadway was still dying away in little incorrigible smiles, when the maid let him in again. He related his adventures to her while he opened his bundles: They included a pound of butter, because, as he explained, he "simply could not cat pop-corn without'' melted butter," and a huge basket containing i fruit, i She was delighted that he had come, for she was ir.o excited to go to bed. lie popped the corn and she, curiously enough, did all the ts.'ku:. A.nd how she did talk! She beat even her rn ncord of their morning tctc-a-tetc. ' Merriam could not seem to get enough of her. 1 lis eves 'I'd not follow and co.npel her gaze as Crane's had. Thcv dwelt on her wi the same half-wondering, half-wist fnl, wholly tender expression that she had surprised in them this morning. It seemed to be explained when he exclaimed suddenly: 'Oh, you don't know how good it is to sec a woman again when you've been two years in the cow country!" In the next two weeks she saw little of Merriam, jV.r he was sent on a business trip into the middle of the State. Cut Crane came two nights later, skipped I IF? hurry ing w orkaday crowd made Broad-ftjv Broad-ftjv way seem sober, dien. Everybody in the car looked pinched and tired and cold. For the la-l few minutes. Olive Hastings had tcen considering a subject unpleasantly recurrent in her thoughts nowaday.--, Is, Life Worth Living? For her, at least, it meant getting up at an uncanny hour in the. morning. It meant standing in a crowded, foul-smelling car. li meant taking letters all day at the alternate dictation of two stodgy, middle-aged business men. It meant skimping on lunches and dinners for ihc sake of a summer vacation. vaca-tion. To intermit such unprofitable reflections she had recourse to the book which she was reading. And then her eyes, incurious, lack-luster. roing along the row opposite, fell on a face. It wus a face that she had not seen more than halt a iior.cn times all told. It was a face that she had not seen once in the last two years. Hut it was the same face about which, nightly, she wove her waking dreams. And it had all its old magic The wintry world suddenly put on the glamours of May. Iter heart began to leap, her head to whirl, her blood quickened to racing speed. Praying that her emotional illumination would not flare through her skin, she managed to follow up her recognition with a bow and u smile. Lawrence Crane had arisen and was coming toward to-ward her. She made a place at her side. In another instaiv, her hand was in hi-. 'This is perfectly charming!" she "was saying. What a wayr he had! How his gaze seemed to drink her down!. It seemed to assure her that there never had. been, never could be, any (tlicr woman.- How bored he nuist'hfivc been, was her next thought. ''You're the last person in ibe-world I expected ' Jo., sec." she managed to ay. She tried to meet his eyes, -but she could net sustain his gajc.' . - - But her glance had shown her that he was quite as "bonny" that was her word for him as she remembered hun. Tall, broad-shouldered, and with something of the glory of the college athlete lingering linger-ing about him, he had an array of charms. From the ciisp, aing hair, through the straight profile and down to the square dimpled chin, he was a man who would arrest a woman's attention anywhere. "Its providential,"' he announced. She felt his amused gaze beating through her eyelashes. "I've only been here a day or two and I've had it on my mind to look you up my first frpe' evening. Thai's to-night, I may add unless you're going to be cruel and find another engagement." . There was the old fascination in his voice she noted them one by one wcll-i cmcmbercd I ricks of inflection; it was distinctly a "magnetic" voice. t- How wonderful he was! How handsome! It made her di;:y to unci his eyes in that long-ago visit to Helen. LTndevc!opcd, silent, awkward as she was, every word that he gave her seemed a caress. Xow it was even worc, his very" presence was a ibration. his words were bliss. Was she dreaming? Had the skies fallen? She tried to find something to hold to. "Everything comes to him who waits," came uppermost in her mind in stupid reiteration. She wondered it that explained. Xcxt she was conscious of being glad tiiat she wore Helen's gray dress it was the most becoming thing she had. Heavens! he must have seen Helen in it again and again. But men never remembered. Would Helen really have married him she wondered. He had engaged in a desperate flirtation with her cousin during that week that they had both met him for the first time, and his flirtation had actually lapped over the announcement announce-ment of Helen's bcthrothal to another man. The first thing that had occurred to Olive when she heard of Helen's broken engagement, six months ago, was that Lawrence Crane would renew his suit. Perhaps he had. and perhaps Helen had refused him. She would not speak to him of her, she decided cs- Jiccially now when there was a coolness between herself and Helen. Was life worth living? It 7iis joy to get up at the uncanny hour in the morning. It tea bliss to stand in a crowded, foul smelling car. Tt "was rapture taking letters all day long at the alternate dictation of two stodgy, middle-aged business men! It ,-cas ccstacy to skimp on lunches and dinner! for the sake of a vacation! She ran from the car to the office. She raced up tlic four "flights of . stairs no-devato-p-could hold- -her spirits that morning. Opening the door with a jerk, she rushed in. precipitating herself into the arms of six feet of the other sex about to rush' out. "My hands are up." he said without further parley. "My money's in my inner coat-pocket,,", She laughed and drew back. "But what are you doing here?" she demanded in the ncbu instant. ' I'm Merriam, the new partner. ' You've got roe roped, thrown and lied but don't mind vnc ' She stared at him nonplused. He looked fresh, young, absolutely untamed, and yet he might have been thirty. His skin had been weather beaten until it was a cheerful mahogany. He had big, unabated gray eyes as dear as a child's. Olive hung up her hat and jacket, and her hands played carelessly back and forth over her hair. Her cheeks were still brilliant with excitement. "I don't suppose you know a cow-boy from a tax collector," he said, his eyes following the flitting hands. i Her spirits bubbled over hint. "I'd like to know how Then an awful certainty rigzagged through the crystal '' her happiness, shattering it to a million fargments. "A little dark thing." he went on. "she was staying, with j on. What is the matter?" Olive was staring, stricken. "Will you tell me what my name is?" she aske4 i stupidly. ' He laughed. "Helen Hastings, of course." She pulled herself ogcthcr. The new laugh that U had helped her to find In herself rippled out bravely. "Xow I've got il." she said in triumph. "From th first I wondered how you happened to remember me so well when you saw me so few times. And you made a mistake; I'm not Helen Hastings. F,n the little dark coum.i that you speak of. My father died soon aftcx J met you,, and I became a stenographer." "You're not Helen Hastings?" he said stupidly. She nodded her head in assent. The air was so full of things that neither could say, that they choked breathing them in. He laughed at last and with a fair degree of natural-ncss. natural-ncss. "Of course, I see it al! now. You've grown to look surprisingly like your cousin. They told me that Helen was doing Settlement work." "Is Helen in town?" Olive asked dolly. "I did not know it, but it's- not strange, as we have not corr(v sponded for a long time."' They tried to talk down the constraint in the atmosphere, atmos-phere, but it made long pauses between their remarks. It intensified the ticking of the dock that, as if to save the situation, seemed to be going at double speed. ' Olive lost all hcr 'sparile: she kept thinking that she had spent with wide-flung, generous hands a gold that wa- not her's. Remarks that she heard '"whispTclTXT " him kept coming into her head. "Lawrence Crane will never marry anybody but a rich girl," was one of them. They dulled the last remnant of her vivacity. When he left, it was with a formal handshake and a still more formal word of farewell. He came again, after a long interval, once more. Eut his calls were silent, joyless on her part, a little too vivaciou on his. Then for a long time she did not see him. The Sunday after his last call Merriam appeared, back from a successful .trip He came into the room like a sca-breere, stinging her into a recrudc.-cencc of her lost hilarity with an impetuous onslaught of narrative. i , He insitcd on taking her away for the da)-. When he left her, she had regained all her lately lost self-confidence. self-confidence. '. She had little chance to lose it again, for in the next month he was constantly with her. Evenings 1 ""' &WSiMl 111 li : " . j i ; ; - 1 : "I'om'iv yring to be kissed uo:c. anybody can escape knowing what a cowboy is," she said, "when the magazines arc full of them, and I know every one of the fifty-seven varietic by heart) I suppose all your life long you've done nothing butj think noble thoughts about the ilars. I don't suppose you ever gave way to a temptation in your life," "I could, without straining a muscle," fie asserted, "if it were little and dark and had brown cjes?" ' j She sighed elaborately, "I'm sorry my eyes arc blue." "Did I make such a mistake as that?" He leaped forward with an al.urity that impelled her a few steps backward, but he examined her eyes interestedly, and look so long that she accused him of being blind. "No, only dazzled," he was almost mournful about it. ' "You must get used to being daled," she replied with spirit. "I'm a fixture about this office." lie was meek. "It's smoked glasses for mc hereafter." "I'm ready to take any letters," she was beginning when the duor opened and the senior partner came in, The elder man went out after a while, and she never ulked to any man in her life as she talked to hun. But while she v.a chattering her swiftest, laughing her iiic-riist and coquetting with him In the way that seemed to be natural effervescence of1' her mood her heart was beating to the single refrain "He is coining to-night !" ' ll'T companion was very conscious of her presence all d.iy long, and submitted her to unobtrusive banter that she soon grew to distinguish by his own term ' jo-hing," but he was careful not o interfere with her work. , ' ' '" ) That night on her way home, she perpetrated the unheard-of extravagance of buying a bunch of violcls, and later of ordering a fire in the pqrlor. After dinner she pat on the one frivolous gown slje had aftorded m two years, a soft, rose-pink crepe, and tucking the Volets into her belt went down q meet her guest. The firelight flamed and tparkled and glowed as he lie lOOK licr 0111 10 uniinr, i- uit imant, ki for long walks in the park. 'When he was not with her, the vision of his tall figure and his fresh-colored, gray-eyed gray-eyed face remained It came gradually to oUft a more splendid presence from her thoughts. Perhaps the fact that she saw Crane at the theatre once or " twice 'with her, cousin Helen helped this process. . : One Sunday, two months later, she was surprised ( by a visit from Crane. She was at her very Lest with him that day. for his eyes had no more effect upon her 1 than. a pair of pebbles. It was she who did the talking, I he the liitcning. Before he went, lie startled her by ) an offer' of marriage. In the moment iri 'which she j hunted for words in which to refuse it, she 'wondered J , if. Helen aiso had rejected him. He. refused to accept j her "no" and left almost' elated She. felt now she j might be in possession of data that would assure hint ' r.r what Iter own words evidently could not. As a matter of fact she had the evidence that very night, for Merriam. sitting on the rug and holding :he roin-popper over the flames, announced that the firm .had decided on sending him to Goldfields the next weclc .Then he abruptly asked her to marry him. ' She accepted. ' "Hut there are some things I want to tell you." she said. 'eying him curiou.-ly "In the first place I didn't qct you qu te honestly. There was another man qnce and' I tiiought he cared for mc-and, so, on the strength of his admiration " ,' i 1 ."Go on." he' said promptly. ; " "WclJ, I feel it c;i my conscience to tell yotl thaf v r,,''re getting an article ikil isn't nlUch m demand.; In ' all my experience I never had' but on- proposal and "What do the dandar-log of this town know about j real woman r" he interpolated contemptuously. "Co on.' -And I've never been kissed in my life.' , ." The, corn-popper fell' to ruin among the flanjeV . "You're going to be kissed now," 1 said. ' "I'm glad I waited," she admitted alter an inienal. III,. l She fell his amused gase. At for her, all the blood 'in her bod) was sin ging T.ick in waves into her heart, and thii inner commotion com-motion betrayed itself in the color cpming in and out of her pale checks. She tried to lift her eyelids, eye-lids, she tried to speak; both feat were impossible. Vic lo.Avd straight ahead. 'To her blurred vision, i'Toadwav streamed by like a nennant. "You're not going to have, another engagement," he urged; "where do you live?'. With a tremendous effort she gave hint her address. ad-dress. Somehow she added desperately: "You know fcboui my work, I suppose". Her voice wa, hoarse and her throat parched. , "Of course I know all about it. Will you be home . to-night?" He wab ringv S'.ie tried to stay the quiver of her lips. But she had to h'dd lb,- lower one' Mill witlrher tcctii aftcr ihc hid said, "Ye.-, Til la- at home." recent estrangement, Helen had kept her well-informed. Faithful to her resolution, however, she did not mention Helen s name. Xor did he. When he left ;it half-pa.: nine it was' with more than one admiring, farewell glance at Oiivc's flushed and sparkling face. She stood for a moment dreaming over the wonder of il all, when the bell rang and suddenly, to her great surprise, Mr. Merriam appeared in the doorway.' He .stopped and stared. . For the second time that evening, a pair of masculine eyes told her that she wa5 f:?r. . "I was just going by," he announced breezily; :i if his coming was the most natural thing in the world, "and I thought I'd look in on you. ' Dc you know what l':n going to do," he went nu with a rapidity that fore stalled any comment of hers, vc can't waste a fire like that. I'm going out and get a popper and sonic : r - 1, C01' RIGHT, iop. n night, then three in succession, skipped a night, then ca:ila:itly. ; Olive was beginning to get over her shyness, aow, occasionally, -he dared to meet his eyes in a pyschologi- . . cal,-soul-to-soul conflict, which he often tacitly admitted "to be a draw by shifting his ga;e. ' For the most part, however, he sli.'l did the talking- But even there she was beginning to assert herself.. ., ,rd-fnc drol.ncss of her point ot -Lew, the .v--r;ncss of her rctort often left Jiim beggared of words. Once ' or twice she carried joking warfare into his very camp. ' That lat night their intimacy had reached the point where- it allowed them to meditate an instant in silent , .; u under over a subtle coincidence in taste. He inter- ' rcpietl it t.i say carelessly. 'Oh, what's become of that little cousin of yours that I met in Worcester?" "..''Olive knitted her brows for a considering second. |
