Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1910 — FACE THAT WAS FAMILIAR. [ARTICLE]

FACE THAT WAS FAMILIAR.

Quite Sure She Had Met the Men and So She Really Had. Two richly dressed young girls whose breeding and beauty would pass unquestioned anywhere were among the crowd at an exhibition of paintings last week. Suddenly the taller of them lifted her eyes and exclaimed to her companion, as she caught sight of a man entering the room: “Why, there’s some one I ought to know real well.”

She was looking directly at a man who had not yet seen her, says the New York Press. He was well worth looking at —strong, broad of shoulder, fair as a Norseman, with an air far more material than artistic. The girl’s steady eyes compelled the man’s gaze. As their glances met she bowed. He looked surprised, but made no response. She bowed again with gentle insistence, smiling the while. He was almost up within touch of her as he returned her greeting with seeming protest at doing so. A sudden pressing together of the crowd brought them close to each other, and she purred up to him. “Don’t you think that on the average this year’s exhibition is an improvement on the last?” she asked. “I don’t know, Miss Kirkie,” he returned. simply, with a shyness of manner that seemed strangely enough unsuited to so superb a physical specimen. “I’m no judge. I just came in just because I was given a ticket.” “Y-e-s?” she drawled out. Then hurriedly, as she put out her hand, which he failed to see: “You really will pardon me, won’t you? But I can’t recall where I met you or anything—even your name has slipped my memory. And 1 yet I ought to know it, since you haven’t forgotten mine, I see. And your face is so familiar!” She broke off and looked up at him with eager expectance, as though she were questioning him. Finally he broke what promised to be an icy silence.

“Yes, miss, you used to see me very often when you lived in.the apartment on 72d street. I was—l still am—the janitor there.”