| OCR Text |
Show $ An Afghan I M I :::: in Her :::: Home .. i ' i I By CLARA DELAFIELD (), lilt, WmUtb Nwippr Union.) WHEN he went to live at Mrs. Meyers' he looked so ordinary that the widow bad not the least objection ob-jection to letting blm bave a room. Ordinary like ordinary people. But physically he was a superb specimen of a man broad In the cheat, with an eagle nose and dark, flashing eyes. He was engaged, he told the widow, In studying economics, or something like that. He went In on an early train every day, and came back at night He waa some sort of foreigner, Mrs. Meyers knew, but he was a very nice young maa. Edith Meyers thought so, too. It was not for two weeks that It wa discovered that he was an Afghan, sent over to study something or other for the benefit of bis native country. An Afghani But nobody had ever seen an Afghan before. Who were the Afghans? Mrs. Meyers looked It up In Everybody's Encyclopedia, and waa horrified. Why, they were the most treacherous, bloodthirsty race of Asiatics. They were always cutting cut-ting your throat and plundering you. An Afghan in her bouse 1 Mrs. Meyers went to give him notice, and be smiled In such a charming way that she hadn't the heart to do It She muttered some apology and withdrew In something like despair. That wasn't the worst by any means. The next day Edith confessed with tears that she waa engaged to marry Abd-el-Rahman. The widow screamed with dismay. Her daughter to marry an Afghan? Why, he'd murder her in ber sleep or take ber back to his own country and sell ber ss a slave! Edith waa calmly obdurate. She loved Abd-el-Rahman, and she didn't see why she shouldn't marry him If he wanted ber. There was a terrible scandal In the little community. Will Rogers, Edith's former beau, started for the house with the object of giving Abd-el a horsewhipping, but met blm at the gate and changed bis mind, and gave him a cigarette Instead. And ao, a month later, Edith and Abd-el were quietly married by a justice jus-tice of the peace. They couldn't marry In church because Abd-el waa a heathen heath-en or something. Abd-el bad furnished a tittle house not far away from Edith's old home, and the young couple appeared to be supremely happy. But still the gossip gos-sip dogged them. "Anyone except an Afghan 1" walled Mrs. Myers. "Sooner or later that ear-age ear-age nature will break out and he'll run through the streets with a poisoned poi-soned dagger, killing man, woman and child. I've read aU about It In the encyclopedia. One day, you mark my words, Edith will come to her senses, If she Isn't murdered In her sleep first." But the devotion of the young couple to each other continued marked. The only thing that troubled Edith was her husband's economic investigations. Why did they bave to take blm Into town so punctually every morning? Suspicion gradually awakened. To cut It short, one morning Edith followed her husband Into the city on the morning morn-ing train. But suppose we let Mrs. Meyers tell the rest of the story. Picture her, retailing re-tailing It to the family and the neighbors neigh-bors In her parlor, with waving of hands and spasmodic sobbing: "And the poor child comes to me bathed in tears. And what d' you think happened? Why, Edith followed hlra, and he went to one of those horrid little lit-tle streets by the (Bowery, and It turns out he's got a second-hand clothes shop there, and when she came in he was standing with a vest In one hand and a pair of trousers In the other, and he turned white as a sheet. "He confessed to her there and then that he never saw Afghanistan In his life. He's a Polish Hebrew, who started out to be smart, and he won her love under false pretenses. Edith says she wouldn't hsve minded who or what he was, not even the secondhand second-hand clothes shop, If only he hadn't deceived her. The poor girl's been living In hopes for months past of some day seeing him In a terrible rage, and looking murderous and heroic, and what Is he? Just that. And all of us so proud of ber being married to an Afghan." |
