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Show child who thinks nobody has anything any-thing to do but listen" "But I wanted to listen!" Kessler exclaimed. "You're not sorry you talked to me!" "Not for myself, oh no. But I was so absorbed in myself I didn't realize how I might be affecting you. Have I brought back something some-thing that's better forgotten? Forgive For-give me, please forgive me, if I've tried you too far." Kessler stood up abruptly. He turned and moved a step so as to face her. She looked up at him standing between her and the stars, a black figure that gave an impression impres-sion of strength in spite of the crippled crip-pled body. "I told you not to try to answer me. Please don't try. There's no answer, for me or for you." "Yes there is," he exclaimed decisively. de-cisively. "For a moment, sitting there, you had me almost believing TTIE STORY THUS FAR: Spratt Her-Iotik, Her-Iotik, motion piciure producer, met and married F.lizabclh, whose first husband, Arliiur Kittredcc, was reported killed In World War I, but who later appeared In Hollywood and secured a Job from Spratt. Under the name of Kessler, and with his disfigurements, he was not rec-osnized. rec-osnized. He was a frequent visitor at the Herlong home and they all became good friends. One day while they were waiting for Spratt, Arthur told Elizabeth that he realized the fight she was going through, knowing that Dick would soon be going away to war. She said that so far she could only see the war in terms of her son, not as a noble struggle for a better world. CHAPTER XVII "I wish there were something I could say to you," he told her in a low voice. Elizabeth had clasped her hands and was moving them against each other restlessly. "I don't know why I feel so much like talking to you. Maybe it's just that if I don't talk it out pretty soon I don't know what will become of me. Do you mind listening?" "I want to," he answered, with such simple sincerity that she could have no doubt of his sympathy. He hesitated an instant, then asked, "Can we sit down, Mrs. Herlong?" "How stupid of me!" she exclaimed. ex-claimed. She hurried to lead the way to two deck chairs placed on the lawn, at the side of the house. Cherry had left a sweater on one of them, and Elizabeth put it on, for the evening chill was blowing in from the sea. "We aren't just courteous cour-teous about not noticing your limitations, limita-tions, Mr. Kessler," she remarked as they sat down, "we're usually not even aware of them." When he answered it was in a matter-of-fact voice. "This is one of the things I found hardest to get used to," he said. "I mean, asking for a chair. I had always been so healthy that I was the one who had to be reminded not to expect too much of other people. Please don't be embarrassed I'm not." "Are you cold?" asked Elizabeth. "No. What was it you wanted to tell me?" "Spratt is my second husband you didn't know that, did you? It's not important in any personal sense between us, it never has been important im-portant and it wouldn't be now except ex-cept that my first husband was killed in the last war. I loved him very much. Of course, now, looking back on it, it's easy to say it shouldn't have mattered so much, I was a young girl with all my life before me, and as it happened I met Spratt and everything turned out as you've seen it. But at the time there was no way for me to look forward. When I remember it" She stopped. After a moment Kessler asked, "Did you suffer so horribly?" "I can't tell you what it was. It wasn't anything anybody could understand un-derstand except somebody who had been through it. I had loved him so, and then all of a sudden he was dead. It was anyway, I never went through anything like it before, and I never have again. Of course, it's all over I don't even think of it very often, but now " She stopped again. There was a silence that seemed to last a long time. At last Kessler said, in a voice so low she barely heard him, "Yes? But now?" "Don't you understand? I can't take it again. I can't. I thought there never would be anything else like that. It was over and done I with. My world had been shot to pieces, and I picked up the pieces and made myself go on living, and I was rewarded more than I ever dreamed of expecting. But I can't do that another time. Even if I had the strength, it's too late. I was twenty when I lost Arthur. It wasn't easy to go on then. But now I'm forty-four. If my world is shot to 1 pieces again, it stays that way. I can't go back and start over. And why should I be expected to? Life can't be all beginnings and no ful- fillment!" As she broke off Kessler asked, "What is that exquisite scent that's suddenly here all around us?" "Night-blooming jasmine. Sometimes Some-times it blooms till late in the year. Are you listening to me?" "It I hadn't been listening I shouldn't have asked about the (lowers. (low-ers. I was just thinking, in a world so full of possibilities for pleasure, why should anyone have to say what you are saying to me?" "You're not answering me, are you?" she said. "There isn't any answer. But thank you for listening." listen-ing." After a moment she went on, "I can't tell you what a relief it has been to say all this. I believe saying say-ing It to you has got it out of me so I won't pour it all out to Spratt. That's why I'm grateful." She readied her hand out and laid it over his, as it rested on the head of his cane. To her astonishment, she found that instead of lying there lightly as she had thought, his hand was gripping the cane with such violence vio-lence that the muscled were hard and the knuckles were like rocks. Elizabeth drew away quickly and sat up. "Mr. Kesslerl What have I done to you?" "Nothing," he answered sharply, and sat up too, as though startled. "What is the trouble?" "Why couldn't I keep quiet?" she demanded of herself contritely. "Here I've been babbling like a Kessler, why doesn't he ever say so?" "I suspect it's because he knows what's going on in your mind, a lot better than you think." "You mean," she said bitterly, "he knows his father and I aren't fit to be told. Because we have failed him terribly." "Would you believe me if I told you I loved your son, Mrs. Herlong? I do love him. He's so much like the son I used to think I might have." "You never had any children, did you? Margaret told me this afternoon after-noon you adopted her after her parents par-ents died." "No, I never had any children," he returned steadily. "That was another an-other of the things the war made impossible." "Oh," she said faintly. After a moment she exclaimed, "Yet you have conquered, Mr. Kessler. You have gone on Irving, living well and nobly, in a world that left you absolutely abso-lutely nothing to live for. How did. you do it? It seems strange that I who have everything should turn to you who have nothing, and say 'Please help me.' But I do. Because Be-cause right now it seems that it is you who have everything and I who have nothing. Will you help me?" He asked, "Do you want me to try to tell Dick what he's being asked to fight for?" "YesI Can you? Will you?" 'Til try. I'll do my best." "Thank youl You can do it better bet-ter than I can. You've seen it. And you are so wise, so gentle, so how can I say it? I mean you're the only man I know I'd trust to do it well." There was a brief silence, then he said, "And you?" "I'll take it, Mr. Kessler. Forgive me for being such a coward." Margaret was going to have a Christmas party for some of her schoolmates, and Elizabeth suggested suggest-ed that she and the two older children chil-dren come to Kessler's apartment one afternoon to decorate the Christmas Christ-mas tree. As it was hard to buy ornaments in the stores they brought their own, part of an abundance left over from earlier holidays. Margaret Margar-et was there, jumping with excitement excite-ment while Kessler looked on.. He liked Christmas, and enjoyed her pleasure in it. While he was showing show-ing Elizabeth the silver fountain pen Spratt had given him as a Christmas present, Dick was dragging in a ladder, and calling to Elizabeth to move out of his way. "We'll start at the top," he said, setting up the ladder by the tree and beginning to climb. "You hand me the junk. Cherry." With Elizabeth's assistance. Cherry Cher-ry handed up the junk. Margaret helped, her arms full of tinsel and her eyes wide and joyous. "It's just beautiful," she kept saying over and over. "It's just beautiful." She got close against the resplendent resplend-ent tree and looked up through the branches. "I can see you up there, Dickl Look at me." He bent down, scratching his face on the branches. "Sure, I see you. Hello." As he leaned over, a collection collec-tion of glass balls slipped out of his hand and smashed on the floor at her feet. "Oh!" Margaret cried in dismay. "It doesn't matter," Cherry reassured reas-sured her, "there are plenty more." "You've hung up about all it will hold, anyway," Kessler observed as the door opened and the housekeeper came in to tell Margaret her supper was ready. Margaret shrank back against the tree, looking down at the broken glass before her. "I I'm scared," she confessed. "I might fall down and get cut." "Yes, so you might," Elizabeth agreed. "Come give her a lift, Dick." "Okay. Wait a minute, Margaret." Dick scrambled down from the ladder. Remarking that he had jolted some lights out of place, Cherry Cher-ry climbed up to adjust them. Dick reached across the broken glass. "Put your arms around my neck and hold tight so I can lift you, Margaret. There you are. She'll be along in a minute," he said to the housekeeper, and as she went out he swung Margaret across the pile of glass and set her down. "Right?" he asked her. She nodded. "Right, thank you. I'm always scared of falling down on broken things. I fell down once, and got a bad cut on my neck. See?" She drew the collar of her dress aside. Dick bent to look at the scar she showed him. "Why, you did get a bad cut. How did that happen?" "A man kicked me," said Margaret, Mar-garet, "and I fell down." "What?" said Dick. The eyes of them all turned to her Elizabeth, her hands full of tinsel. tin-sel. Cherry on the ladder adjusting adjust-ing the lights, Dick standing beside Margaret at the foot of the tree. Kessler, sitting in his chair near by, said nothing. But Margaret appeared ap-peared not to realize the start she I had given them. "What man kicked you?" Dick demanded, de-manded, and stopped, absorbing the idea of men who kicked little girls Margaret answered without any excitement. "The man who killec my mother." (TO BE CONTINUED) "There's no answer, for me or for you." that there wasn't. You said it was too late for you to start over. You are not required to start over. But you are required to keep going. Remember, Re-member, your responsibilities are of your own creation. You aren't responsible re-sponsible for what's happening in the world, but you are responsible for how you take it." "I told you I couldn't take it. I can feel myself breaking at the prospect. I can't take it." "Yes you can," he said sternly, "and you're going to." His force was like a stimulus. 'Elizabeth exclaimed, "Do you believe be-lieve I can, Mr. Kessler? You seem to know me pretty well by now do you believe I can?" "You can," he returned earnestly, earnest-ly, "because you've promised it, by , every action of your life. Nobody required you to get married, or to have children, or to live so that you would be essential to their well being. be-ing. If you had wanted to, you might have been one of these whining whin-ing creatures who takes to her bed at every annoyance and becomes the center of her little universe by demanding de-manding attentions she's too useless to get any other way. But you didn't do that. You outlived your own early grief. To do it you had to strip your character down to its core of strength, so that this is what they have seen of you, this is what you have taught them to expect. They believe in you. They need you, and they're going to need you more. Don't fail them." Elizabeth drew a long breath. Her chest felt tight. After awhile Kessler Kess-ler resumed his chair. He turned to her, saying, "Right now, you are beginning to fail." She started. "Is it as obvious as that? Already?" "Why don't you stop looking at this entirely from your own viewpoint?" view-point?" he asked. "You wonder if you can take it has it never occurred oc-curred to you that Dick is taking it very well?" "Dick? He doesn't seem to think very much about it." "He doesn't seem so to you, may- j be. But he is thinking about it." "How do you know?" She was j startled. "Has he said anything to you?" i "No. But I know he is, because I've been there." I Elizabeth exclaimed, "Yes you i have. Tell me what it's like!" j "It's a torment of bewilderment," he returned. "You don't say much I about it because everybody seems to understand it better than you do. You don't know the reason other people peo-ple aren't explaining it to you is that they don't understand it either. You go around wondering how you're going to act like a brave hero. Elizabeth was sitting forward, her hands tight on the arms of her chair. "That's what's going on in his mind! But whv hasn't he told us? Mr. i |