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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1917)
THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 21, 1917. -7. Jtjlfr JP(( By DOROTHY JEFFERSON y - . - m W4 HE boy i-couta nick named blm. The day after Peter Van Zandt arrived at the camp the captain of com pany 4 sent Hoppy, a freckle -nosed scout, to deliver a message to the new comer. Van Zandt, sitting dolefully on the edge of hi cot. received lloppy cold ly and turned his back on a cheerful burst of gossip which was offered with the message. "You've got the boot captain in camp," Hoppy volunteered clubily; "he's in love with the colonel's daughter, Marjory Del mar. Ever seen Miss Marjory?" t Peter Van Zandt knewittle or noth ing about the habits and prejudices of loy scouts. Accordingly he met Hoppy's friendly green eyes with a frigid stare and shrugged hi wide shoulders in a manner which plainly indicated his in difference to the captain's affairs of heart. "Tell Captain Summers that I 8hall report to the sergeant at once," he or dered briefly. Hoppy, feeling unjustly rebuffed, strode spitefully out of the barracks and ent in search of his boon companion, Lanky Jones. "Gee, that new private lri company 4 In cocky," he declared with a contemptu ous twist of his thumb toward Van , Zandt. "I mean that big, light haired fellow with tho Jack-o'-lantern face. Ween him yet? His name's Peter 1 eter " "Pumpkin Kater!" prompted Lanky fclihly. "Sure, I seen him comin' in last night. Pumpkin Pete, 1 call him." The ridiculous name stuck. Private Van Zandt found himself branded by the scorn of the two most popular boy scouts In camp, and even he, wrapped in smug nelf -satisfaction, admitted that there was a distant resemblance between his good looking yellow head and a ripe pumpkin. Ills features were large and clearly cut, nnd his mouth, when he smiled, was a Lroad slit in hia round face. The smile vas, however, a rare thing, after he was selected under the draft law and trans ierred from an eastern college to a west ern army camp. Not that Peter Van Zandt was a slacker. Ho wasn't. He was a strong, clean limbed young American, with a greater amount of physical courage than the ordinary man possesses. Only one thing stood between him and a healthy enjoyment of the life at the post. His red blood was diluted, weaken!, adul terated by the blue blood of his ancestors. His inability to forget that he was a Van Zandt did not mean that he was a cow-" ard. but It meant that he was something nlmost equally despicable. A snob makes a poor sort of soldier. If Peter had been an officer ho would have found comfort in Imposing menial ; tasks on the men below him In rank, but, being a private, he rebelled silently at the discharge of his duties. "Van Zandt is a queer proposition." Captain Summers said one day as Peter rounded the barracks leading Monty, the captain's horse. "Isnt he a specimen of manhood for you, Marjory? He was AH- , American halfback last year, and yet he was never popular at college. The boys call him Pumpkin Pete, and, so far as I know, he hasn't a friend In camp." Marjory Delmar sat erect In her sad dle and stared at Peter's approaching figure with frank curiosity. He lowered ' his eyes after the first glance at his cap tain and the colonel's daughter, and de livered Monty with a respectful but ex ceedingly brief salute. A smile crept Into Marjory's blue eyes as she cantered up the road beside Captain Summers. "So Pumpkin Pete Is a mystery to you," she said presently. "I'm surprised at your Inability to diagnose such a com mon malady. Mr. Van Zandt 13 suffering from a severe case of wounded pride nothing more, nothing, less. He, like some other men I know,- feels that he should be a commissioned officer because of family prestige. The idea of taking orders from a social Inferior Is Intoler able to him." Captain Summers laughed. "Snob, eh?" "Exactly." The conversation turned to other things and Peter Van Zandt, the blue . blooded private, slipped out of Summers' mind. The autumn air was fresh and cold and a bright color flamed In Mar jory's cheeks as she gave her horse the rein. Her black hair loosened and tum bled from under her velvet tam, and she wound her plaid scarf tightly about her throat. Captain Summers halted at the foot of a steep hill and faced her abruptly. "Let's rest the horses a minute," he suggested. Marjory looked up quickly and found confirmation for her suspicions In his face. . "It's getting late," she parried. "Marjory, I won't pretend any longer. I can't. I've been trying to tell you that I love you for months and months. Things can't go on this way. I want you to be my wife." Captain Summers was an Impressive figure as he sat at ease on his big cavalry horse, waiting for the girl's answer. She studied him under lowered eye lashes before she spoke. "I'm not sure," she said finally. "I like you, but It's an awfully big question. Will you give me a month to make up my mind?" Summers nodded. - "As long as you wish, dear," he said scftly; "as long as you wish." Marjory's blue eyes danced "with sud den Inspiration. "I'll tell you at the officer's ball," she declared. "It's to be given In the gym nasium Halloween. Spooks and witches don't dare dance at an army post unless invited to do so, and I made father promise to give a regular harvest home party that night. I'm too old to steal gates, but I still love the Halloween le gends. I believe I can give you my an swer at the ball." Silently, sullenly, Peter Van Zandt re ceived orders from a sergeant the fol lowing day. He recalled the curiosity on Marjory Delmar's face as she appraised him the afternoon before, and his soul stormed at the thought that she intended tb make him ridiculous. "Curry that mare and take hex; arotmd to the colonel's house!" the sergeant commanded unfeelingly: "Miss Delmar waiits to ride her." Pumpkin Pete obeyed. He thought savagely of the silver pins on the cap tain's shoulders as he climbed the hill behind the - barracks. He would have given a large, share of the Van Zandt fortune for a lieutenant's insignia. "The girl's a heartless creature," he assured himself over , and over again. "She knows who I am and she sees an opportunity to humiliate one of the Van Zandts. My mother probably cut the lit tle climber dead socially and she wants revenge." Marjory Delmar was sitting on the porch knitting a khaki-colored sweater. She smiled as Pumpkin Pete halted the neatly curried mare at the gate and touched his hat in salute. - "Tie the horse, please," she called; "I want to talk to you." Were there no limitations to a pri vate's duties? For a moment Van Zandt stood rigid, defining insubordination in his own mind.) A night In the guardhouse was preferable to possible insult from the girl. "Come In," she called again; "I want to talk to you." Pumpkin Pete sat uncomfortably on the porch railing and twisted his broad brimmed hat in his work-knurled hands whilo Marjory began the lecture she had prepared for him. A million tiny blue devils danced in her eyes. "I don't know who you are," she said calmly, "and I don't care. You're a pri vate in company 4, and the boys call you Pumpkin Pete. The captain says you are incorrigible. Now, when I sent for ,you today J had just one thing in mind. Iwant to help you." Peter turned his yellow head toward the girl and smiled tolerantly. "Help me, Miss Delmar?" he queried. "How can you help me?" "By teaching you to forget yourself. I'm very frank about it, Pumpkin Pete, but I hate to think that there is a single man in father's, regiment who will not make a good soldier. Tou won't, so long as you assume the attitude that you are above your rank. I guessed right about that attitude, didn't I?" Peter Van Zandt scowled. "Yes," he said shortly. "It's no secret. I am hardly congenial with the men in my barracks." Marjory nodded silently. "I was right," she said frankly. "You may go now. Bring my horse around every afternoon at this time, please, Mr. Van Zandt." She knew his name, after all. Pump kin Pete law awake long after taps that night and meditated o,h his odd introduc tion to the colonel's daughter. "She knew my name," he murmured drowsily as he closed hi eyes. "She knew that I was a Van Zandt." The queer friendship grew--under dif ficulties. Peter Van Zandt began to look forward ' to the hour when he led the - mare up the Mil for Marjory to ride, and little by little he ceased to dread the rail ery in her calm voice. Army ethics pre vented him from calling on her, but her very presence at the camp made life worth living. He took an Interest in his work an frequently exchanged jokes or smokes with the men in his company. "Notice how Pumpkin Pete's per kin" up?" Hoppy demanded one day when he observed a wide smile on the blue-blood- ed private's face. "Looks like he'd signed a new lease on life." October days slipped by with increas ing rapidity, and the raw privates found . themselves transformed into straight fchouldered, strong-muscled soldiers. They no longer ached at the end of the long hike, and the sham battles became good sport. Colonel Delmar viewed his regiment with increasing pride, and Captain Sum mers was exceedingly gratified with his company's progress. Indeed, the two men complimented each other whenever they met, and it was only Marjory, who had done her bit silently, who received no recognition for her services. "Nevertheless," she told herself, "I've done something for the army. I've made a soldier out of a snob." . Preparations for the officers' ball be gan a .week before Halloween. Captain Summers had marked the date on a little calendar in his room, and he left nothing undone that could add to the success of the affair. He dispatched a squad of men to, the woods for autumn boughs and gave his, personal supervision to the decorating of the gymnasium. He bought new music for the band and ordered the refreshments. He even hired a gypsy to tell fortunes. Marjory's answer meant a great deal to Captain Summers. He loved her as much as he was capable of loving a woman, and his good judgment told him that a marriage with the colonel's daugh ter would hasten the advancement he expected and deserved. He was a bril liant officer for his age, quick-witted, level headed and fearless. Men liked him and women adored him. With Marjory for his wife he felt he might rise to any height. . v Halloween afternoon Pumpkin Pete found Hoppy waiting for him when he went to the stable to curry the mare. The scout was perched on an inverted barrel, his green eyes staring thought fully into space. "I can't understand this world,' no how," said Hoppy wearily, "but I brought you the note." Pumpkin Pete took the folded piece of paper from the boy's outstretched hand and read, the message that was scrawled across it. "Hoppy," he demanded sternly, "where did you get this?" "From her, of course. I was walkin' by the colonel's bungalow an' she rushed out, all pink an' excited, an hollered out to me. 'Hoppy.' she says; "Hoppy, dear, will you take this letter to Mr. Van Zandt for me?' " Pumpkin Pete smiled. The unbelievable had come true. Mar jory wrote that she was going out to the woods to gather some goldenrod, and she had obtained permission to take Pri vate Van Zandt as her escort. Would he saddle two horses instead of one? Would he? Less than five minutes later the bewildered and disgusted Hoppy had sidled ouf of the stable to confide In I.anky Jones Pumpkin Pete rode up the hill to Marjory's house mounted on a shiny black horse. The little mare fol lowed docilely behind. "You see," Marjory explained as they rode through J$.e country at a comfort- , able trot,, "I. wanted to apologize to you for the things I said that first day. I said that you would not make a good soldier, and father says that you are the best in your company." Van Zandt made no reply. His eyes were fixed on a patch of goldenrod sev eral hundred feet from the road. "Shall we tie the horses and go after that?" he asked abruptly. "There's enough In there to decorate the whole gymnasium. Here, let me help you." They scrambled across the field with the enthusiasm and agility of children. Feter drew a knife from his pocket and cut as many flowers as they could carry, and then sat down beside Marjory on a fallen tree trunk to arrange the stalks in neat bundles. "The ball will be quite an affair, I sup pose," he said cheerfully. "I almost envy the officers." Marjory caught the sarcasm and " laughed merrily. "You don't envy anyone," she chal lenged. "You are absolutely contented to do your duty, whatever that duty "may be. You are a whole-hearted, red-blooded American soldier." Peter turned and looked Into her blue eyes with sudden seriousness. "If I am," he said softly, "it's because you've mademe one. I've known you such a little while that I'm afraid to tell you all the things that I've been thinking about you. I owe you a lot, Marjory Del mar. You've made a man of me. I've learned to play this soldier game, and It's better sport than football. Freshman year at college I was a weak-kneedsub on the team. Sophomore year I wasAll American halfback. I'm not bragging,, but I bet I'll have pins on my shoulders some of these days, and Pumpkin Pete will do his share toward licking the kaiser when the time comes." Marjory tried to speak, but her voice shook. "I -I know, Peter." It had come to them both all at once. The last rays of the afternoon sun fell softly on the field of goldenrod and turned the world into an unexplored par adise for these two. Peter took one of the girl's hands in his and held it several minutes before he spoke. "I've got to tell you," he whispered at I&st; "I love you, Marjory. Perhaps a private should not ask a colonel's daugh ter to marry him, but I'm going to take the chance. You've made a man, little girl. Is he to be the happiest man on earth V His arms were around her and his lips had found hers ,bef ore she could answer. For an instant she yielded to the em brace, and then drew back with a. sharp little cry. "Peter, Peter," she begged, "give me time to know myself. Captain Summers has asked me to marry him, and I prom ised to give him his answer tonight. You shall have yours, too. You won't be at the ball, but I'll send you a message, somehow. Will you wait, Peter?" There was nothing else to do. Pump- Ian Pete was forced to go to his barracks that night at the usual time end watch the officers as they emerged from their rooms in their dress uniforms and strolled VP the road to the brightly lit gymna sium. In his hand was a crumpled rlece of goldenrod, and in his heart was Mar jory's promise. "You'll know tonight. I shall leave the dance at midnight the witching hour and go to my room. If my, win dows are dark at 12 o'clock my" answer h 'No.' If there. Is a light, my answer Is Yes.' It is easy to know one's fate on Halloween." Taps sounded at 10 o'clock, and Peter Van Zandt. with the other privates, threw himself across a cot in the silent barracks. He thought of the events of -the afternoon, and the knowledge that Marjory, his Marjory, was dancing with Captain Summers began to torture him. He wondered if, after all, she was play ing a game at his expense. After what seemed an eternity he glanced at his phosphorescent wrist watch. It was 11 oVlock. How childish of Marjory to insist that he wait until midnight for his answer! How absurd for a girl of her age to believe in Hal loween rites! Would It never be mid night? It was only the strength of his love that made him condemn Marjory's ro mantic plan. The seconds dragged like years. The silence in the barracks gave way to a chorus of rasping snores. Qetting out of bed and crawling across the barracks to the window which , faced the colonel's house was an adven ture which seemed to Peter fully as thrill ing as creeping over a trench into No Man's Land. Three corporals and a ser geant lay slumbering between him and the spot where he should learn his fate. At one minute to 12 he pushed back his. Covering and slipped silently to the floor. "She 'must say 'Yes,' " he told himself feverishly. "She must. I w a miser able sort of a cuss until I met that girl, but I'll do anything in the world to make her happy if she'll nave me. She must." The big clock In front of the gymna sium boomed' the hour. Peter, reaching the window, heard it; Marjory, in her bungalow, heard it, and Captain Sum mers, returning from the ball, heard it. It was the witching hour of Halloween. Captain Summers, passing the bar racks where company 4 slept, heard something else. It was a queer noise, like a muffled shout, and he entered to discover its cause. He collided with a man in the dark. "Here!" said Captain Summers stern . ly, "what does this disorder mean? Who la th4s prowling about at midnight?" Van Zandt's incoherent words con vinced the captain that he was a som nambulist. "The light! The light!" he shouted. "Look out the window, captain. I'm the luckiest man in the world!" Captain Summers was in a bad hu mor. Ho" glanced behind Peter, and strode wrathfully out of the barracks. "Go back to bed, Pumpkin Pete," he flung back contemptuously; "the only light I see Is a grinning jack-o'-lantern in Miss Delmar's window. It looks strangely like you!" ICopjrlght, 1917, by J. Heeler! TTIb. ildl 1Bf By robert barron - ' ' ; AM a bore. My re lations with women In particular were, up to my twenty seventh year, those of a hltching-post to a saddle-horse. The dears chafed and tossed and stamped. When they told me I was unendurable I at tributed their words to natural coyness; luitil for the first time Rose Wynne de f.cribed me to myself. I well remember .the day. I was seated opposite her in her color ful reception-room. The great lapis laz vh clock above Vie maroon tiles of the llreplace, the wainscoting, topped with a design in rich maroon leather, the ciear blue of the ceiling hover yet before my e es. Hose was an artist of the odd, something of a painter, and, in the wiser Kcnse, a bohemlan. She herself had laid out the colors and fittings of that raro ' Lut cozy spot. It pleased me enthralled me to sit in her chair by the window while she talked from the sofa. Perhaps I loved her; I had often told her I did. Certainly I wanted her to marry me, for she was entrancingly pretty. I had money, too only a couple of millions, but that would have been enough. On the particular day of which I am speaking, her hand resting beside her delicate throat, where It lay against a Russian blue velvet pillow, she broke off the course of what she was saying to re mark: i " " ' "Christopher, there is only abouf one hope left for you maybe not even one. I" am afraid I shall have to give you up, as all the other girls haye done un less ", My throat grew dry. I looked for a I long time into her eyes without asking her to continue. I searched all over her refi-brown hair, the firm, though fem inine, contour of her cheek, the vivid red lips, without finding a single point to pin a thought to, except the platitude that ph was lovely past enduring. All the while I would not ask for her alternative. She continued of her own accord: "Unless you can learn to talk as though you weren't really a, bore. Why don't you try always saying the opposite of what you Intended to? It would be v. lots more interesting. Honest, It would!" I found my feet. For the first time within my memory hot shame rushed through my temples. "Miss Wynne," I said hastily, "before X see you again I will Indeed have dis guised the fact that I am a bore." As I made my way out she was going to remonstrate, then thought better of it. I drove home in deep meditation, having more than once "to stamp on the emer gency brake, while some cop or drayman cursed me. During the next few months I kept out of the society of women yes, and of men for the most part. Mornings I read Mark Twain, Bill Nye, Josh Billings, and all the old and new stand-bys; studied joke books and magazines and cultivated my sense of outlandishness in the news paper comic pages. Afternoons I took novels that ran to conversation, in which, for the senti ments there expressed, I substituted their opposites. At the end of a week I could say to myself with profuse politeness: "Good night, Mrs. Edmonds. I have had the devil of a slow time at this re ception of yours"; or "I hope you won't dance with me, Miss Osborne"; or "I didn't play golf yesterday; and I tell you I didn't make that long seventh hole in four" all without relaxing that pained expression which, I have noticed, a clever man is expected to wear morning, noon and night. A nienth later I could temper my re versals almost with taste I say almost because neither I nor any of my family before me have ever possessed a particle of true sensibility. I grew more studious,, than ever read Moliere and Shakespeare for historic background and eventually, to my surprise, became fond of the ex ercise of wit. w One morning in the dead of winter I awoke laughing. I seized a mirror. In place of the merry grin I used to wear when I laughed the glass presented to me a long, twisted bunch of features, look ing as sad as a man who has just salted his coffee. And now at last I knew that I. might pose as the thing I was not a humorist. That evening I attended a ball at the Cameron-Hales, because I knew Rose was giving an affair of her own and would not be there. I wanted to avoid meeting Rose; yet she persisted in send ing me her invitations as if there had been no split between us. Driving down by myself, I stalked In through the door just as the old Chris Cudd might have done. Mrs. Cameron-Hale was immensely pleased to see me, she said, and asked whether I had been abroad, to account for my recent disappearance. I replied that I was glad she was glad, and hoped she would have no cause to be sorry. As for the past few months, I had disported myself in a quite unusual and unseemly manner. I hoped she had done the same. After a retreat of three steps, with her mouth slightly open, Mrs. Cameron Hale bowed distantly from that distance. I walked on, laughing though, of course, to the company my face presented an as pect of Ironical grimness only. The in cident, whispered around the ballroom, was received with amazement. After a survey of the hail, with its border of gold candelabra, and the low gowned ladles drifting from wall to wall, I strolled toward a girl who had long ago repudiated me. She stood by the blue silk curtain of a street window and, as she was looking below, did not notice me. "Miss Acton?" "Oh, I I hardly recognized you! You're Mr. Cudd, aren't you?" "By no means." "Oh, but you know, there's no use de nying It, Mr. Cudd." "Exactly; that's why I deny it," "Because it's no use?" "Yea. Like yourself, I wish to be or namental not useful." She looked at my face a moment, then laughed gayly. "Mr. Cudd, I think you were telling the truth!' she exclaimed. "You are not yourself at all." It was perhaps 1 o'clock. I stood in the middle of a group, sparring with a lovely young thing whom I had requested ' not to make me wish to ask her to dance with me, as I didn't like to dance. Her reply that she was especially anxious to dance with me for the sake of variety had called forth a round of repartee, and an audience. "Madam," said I at last, "though un doubtedly you are the bird of paradise In this ball, and though it would be heaven to dance with you, my desire to go to heaven is at this moment crowded out by a stronger desire to go to bed." As I turned, comedianlike, and strolled away, a burst of laughter followed, for her acknowledged beauty exonerated my rudeness. I went directly home. On the evening of the day following "my butler brought an unusually large mail. I opened the first envelope: Mrs. Willard Acton requests your presence The second: Mrs. Henri Touronne Invites you 1 most cordially i I was astonished. I selected carefully those Invitations which seemed to offer me the widest scope for self-improvement, avoiding those at which I feared to meet Rose Wynne. Each evening was like the last. My friends agreed that in one day I had changed from a bore to a clever fellow. Little did they know. Then one day I foolishly picked up a. book of Emersoii'a Essays. Thoughts for which I was totally un prepared grew in my astonished brain as I read. Page by page there dawned and brightened in me a'new idea central and searching the conviction that I was a hypocrite. The philosopher's Ideals of character, frankness, openness of heart, abashed and amazed me. I was acting against nature. I was tricking the world and my own soul. What was social success bought at such a price? It was a cramped and nar row world that I was trying to lose my soul for. I ran over In my mind the com panions with whom I had lately asso ciated. They were hollow, selfish, wit less everything unpleasing. And where was Rose Wynne? On my reading table lay a pile of let ters which had remained since the morn ing unopened. I tore the envelope of one abstractedly, strewing it, as I afterward noticed, in little pieces on the floor. Then I happened to glance at the contents an invitation to the most aggravated ball of the season. The highest and worst of society would be there and Rose WTynne. She would glisten like a pearl in the sty. I accepted. My face grew, if possible, longer and knottier. I had made a new resolve. I would be honest with myself and the world. I would speak out, from the depths of my weariness at long-established hypocrisy, and tell the truth to all. My fail from society I would take man fully. Why had I continued to avoid meeting Rose, even when the term of my promise was ended,, if not that I felt cleverness to be no part of me, but a hypocritical assumption? I "had waited until it should become an element of my nature. Rose was dressing when I arrived. I was led upstairs to the little blue room with the maroon wainscoting, which clung in my memory to the last detail of carved furniture and the designs on the rugs. My peace of mind was gone now. I spent the next few minutes seated in a massive mission chair with Russian blue satin cushions, trying to assure myself that I was not going to lose self-control when she entered. Nor did I lose it She came, all rustling silks and roses a subduedtfgolden yellow from head to foot. One low-hanging loop of her red brown hair threw the neck and shoulders into a matchless harmony of color and line. I wondered at the artistic restraint with which" she wore one necklace only, and a single ring, of all her topazes for she had hundreds. She seemed so re moved, so high above me as she -stood there, - that momentarily I forgot poor Chris Cndd's existence. "You have not been here in a long time. Are you going to the ball?" she asked. " "I wondered if you wouldn't go with me in my car," I ventured. "I shall be delighted. Why haven't you eome before, Chris? I expected you months ago.". We went down together to the street. "Do you mind if I talk a little?" I asked humbly. She smiled full on me. "Now Chris, what is it all about?" "Well, then you see,' I've been a hypocrite. Tve put on a lying face to the world, made believe I was clever, and fooled most of them. But when you come down to it, I'm just the same bore at heart. I have the same conceit, and the love of . talking about uninteresting in essentialsonly now people sit around me and laugh at me. Do you see how it was that I couldn't face you? I was act ing. I was a hypocrite. , "Tonight I am going to be the old Chris Cudd. I am going to brag about my golf, and say the same stupid things I used to say. Rose, they have mistaken me for a clever man. That fills my prom ise. Can you endure my company now on the old footing?" "Yes, Chris; but you couldn't be the same now, no matter how hard you tried. If you read your own character you would understand how you have emerged." We went on to the ball. It seemed a long way from the cushions of. the lim ousine to the drawing-room. For many minutes after that, too, I kept silence. Then came my chance. Mrs. Cameron-Hale was standing at my left. She had forgotten the effrontery of that first onslaught several months before, and I could feel her admiration of my new-made self, as she judged me. Cuthbert, Hale and Claude Allen were trying, I thought, to engage me in con versation. . Rose was returning slowly toward me. , I burst out suddenly Into bragging about my golf, using, as nearly as I could remember, the exact words of my old fa vorite . story. It was the tale of how I beat Aleck Gugginson at the last hole by one stroke. Possibly I elaborated a little as I went on, combined my words better, or perhaps introduced a feature or two that had not struck my mind In the old ' days. But essentially.it was the same" story. Hardly had I started telling it before they began to laugh. Of course they ex pected ft to be funny they did 'not un- derstand yet. By the second hole Claude Allen was beginning1 to collapse from a strained side which he was holding with all his might. I knew he would soon be gin to wonder at himself for laughing. A crowd gathered to listen. ,3he description of old Gugginson's- fury when he missed the ball and hit his bald head on a low-hanging chestnut bur, ' rendered word for word as I had told It fifty times before, now brought copious tears of merriment In place of the weary sigh of six months before. By the time I reached th ninth hoi the outer edge of the group was too far off to hear me; Rose was pale with ex haustion from too,,much laughing. Mrs. Cameron-Hale all but fainted, and Cuth bert had to bear her away bodily. "That story is not funny," I added as I finished the account of how Gugginson scared a dachshund with his wild swing; of how the unfortunate animal, scudding away In front, caught the ball In his ribs and spoiled Aleck's drive. "There is nothing in it to laugh at," I remonstrated. Maudlin by this time, they only laughed the harder. I tried to explain that my days as a humorist were done; that I was going t speak the truth thereafter, and nothing but the truth. Every sentence I spoke brought peals of Insane merriment. "Chris, Chris!" Rose objected, when she could speak; "can't you sea. you are breaking up the ball? Mrs. Driwle is fussing and fuming to begin." I gave Rose my arm and we made our way out of the crowd; but there was no escape for me anywhere. They could not have enough of me. My new turn, as they thought it. delighted them even more than the old one had done. So it has gone from that day to this. At last I succeeded m bringing myself and Rose away from the ball. After the formal leave-taking she seemed tired and dreamy, and her soft arm in mine was like the extended hand of an angel to a soul in purgatory. I stowed her safely in among the cushions. Not a word can I remember to have spoken the whole way home; I doubt if one passed my lips, or hers. Looking at her, I half held my breath. Her eyes wandered not restlessly, but without purpose; her lips were full and round and vaguely tired. I could feel her little heart drawing me with the leading strings df love yet who was I to hope it? We walked up to her little room with the maroon wainscoting and the clear blue ceiling. It was a picture of her soul that room; full of rich color, strength, beauty, harmony. Sinking upon the sofa, she looked full In my eyes. Her first, casual words were fraught with meaning which did not belong to them. "Won't you sit down, Chris?" I did beside her. "Rose. I undertook what you told me to; I'd do it again If you said so. But you see what I am a hypocrite. Now, when I try to tell the truth, they will not believe me.' "You poor boy," was all she said, and in a way that provoked me. "You should be fair with me, Rose," I remonstrated; "for you know, without my telling, how deeply, I'm In love with you." . Then before long she had slipped Into my arms and it was all over!
