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Show I A Wife's H Transformation Th Story of tlic Cumchack of Wumin Con to becj By Mary Culbertson Miller INSTALLMENT XXIII Helen's Efforts Are Rewarded. TIIIOItE was a flushed radiance about Helen. Pluslilng adorably, she was, as she felt her husband's gaze boring Into her. Put for the life of her she couldn't articulate. All the pretty speeches she had practiced eluded her. Her long, dark brows, and dark hiHhes gave a peculiar vividness to her eyes. They held Crane speechless. speech-less. The unexpectedness of this made his brain whirl. There was a woman attractive enough to hold any man's glances and she was his wife. He could not at first think clearly about It; his mind seemed to be In such a confused Jumble of contradictory contradic-tory reactions and Impulses. His face was a study of mixed emotions. It was not across ten feet of floor that Crane looked at his wife It was across the enormous gap of barren years that his eyes met hers, ne realized real-ized that he had done nothing more than murmur a forcible ejaculation or two, that he was failing to cope with his complexities. This amazing revelation reve-lation had certainly pierced his self-absorbed self-absorbed soul. It certainly must have been tho god that looks after delinquent delin-quent husbands if there Is such a one that gave Rob the words as his long length strlded across the room : "Helen what In God's name have yon done to yourself?" "Just wakened up Bob. I've 'been a Kip Van Winkle for years." She smiled delidously. Dob Swept Off His Feet. "What I Insist upon knowing," he said gently, his heart thumping, knowing know-ing that she must have done It for him, "is how this all came about." His hands, slender, dark, were pressing down upon her regenerated silken shoulders. "This Is an exquisite tiling yon have on Just suits you," he said, eyeing eye-ing the peach robe. Then he bent and kissed her, and the faint fragrance fra-grance of her premeated every fiber of his being. At breakfast Helen was graphic enough among other things she said: "When I decided I had a capacity for living living real warm life, I got a terrific thrill. I had gotten Into the habit of thinking I was a mess that Providence had designed. me for such." "Well," Bob laughed frankly, "I shan't forget ever what you've done to me this morning. I think we'll have to run over to Italy, so that my nerves can recuperate." They had progressed so frankly from indifference to friendship, even to palship, that Helen felt that all she had asked for had been poured into her lap. And so It was that she sailed Into her port on a smooth sea. She won where so many others fail. Things like time and space didn't seem to count with Bob that morning, even though weeks of absence must be reckoned with at his office. Nothing, Noth-ing, It seemed, could interfere with the fullness of his satisfaction. An important object In the dining room nas a clock long in the Crane family. fam-ily. First one, then the other glanced unbelievingly as fTiough they felt that the tiling wffs cheating. The last minute run out, Boh said, rising from the table: "Come downtown for dinner tonight ; we'll do a show afterwards. We've just got to celebrate, you know," lie smiled. Looking over the hedge and across the terraced garden whose lower slope was a blaze of roses and carnations, carna-tions, one might have seen the two of them on the porch. It would not have struck anyone with any peculiar significance sig-nificance it was just a picture a husband and wife separating for the day. But within those two there was an inward glow of pleasure. ((c) by the Bell Syndicate. Inc.) |