Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1913 — HER LITTLE CAME [ARTICLE]

HER LITTLE CAME

By LOU ISE,OLNEY. Adela rose in her gray mood that hates itself and all the world. Unfortunately, the mirror was the first thing she looked at —and she winced. Surely, at only twenty-seven, she need not look so drawn and old and ugly. She turned away and getting into her kimono armed herself with towels, soap and toothbrush and prepared to wait for her turn at the lodging-house bath. Her natural fastidiousness made her hate the common bath. If she could have a home of her own, however humble; she would have been satisfied. She liked separateness. As she waited on the stairs for the opening and shutting of the bathroom door, Mazie Forman, still halfasleep, her eyes her tail of golden hair over her blue-kimonoed shoulder, joined her. Mazie was flush like a baby after a nap. She was pretty, but trivial, empty, selfish, calculating. She looked Adela over a bit pityingly. “Say,” she remarked, suddenly, thrusting out her left hand to show a new ring set with a chip-diamond, “I’m goin’ to get married. What do yuh know about it? You see, I’m sick of this life —nothin’ in it. Yuh work your head off an’ don’t even make ends meet in an office. I can’t say I’d ruther have Mark than anybody in the world, but he’s the best on the list, and he’s plumb crazy about me. He’s got a little money. I’ll have a place to stay and something to eat without worrying about rent and board bills. A girl’s got to look out for her future.” Adela looked the girl over thoughtfully. Mazie laughed. She liked this quiet woman nearly ten year her senior. “Say,” she advised Adela, “do you know you’re lots better lookin’ than I ever w)ts? Trouble is you don’t know it and use your looks. You don’t make a man know when you’re around. You shrink back into ■yourself A woman has to make a man want her —that’s her little game. Don’t you see? You ought to be married this minute. You’d like it—you’ve got sense and you’d be pretty if you’d loosen up your bald and powder a little and show off! There’s Mr. Howe —I couldn’t make him look at me—l don’t mind owning that I’ve tried. But you could do it. You’re his style. But you act as if he was poisoned meat because you’re afraid he’ll think you’re running after him. Don’t you like him?”, Adela gave a gasp and a . wave of dull red swept over the velvety dark of her face. “Do—I —like him?” she gasped. Mazie laughed . and, seeing her chance, made a run for the bathroom, followed by Adela They washed and splashed, Mazie silent because she had again forgotten everything but herself, Adela from sheer outraged astonishment. It is awful for a chit of a common child, barely eighteen, to read your own soul before you read it yourself. Did she like Mr. George Townsend Howe? For a week she shunned Mazie, and then the girl went away to be married. Something new arose within Adela’s heart. Had the child been right? She looked up one day at the thought and met the quiet gaze of George Howe bent fully upon her. Her heart stood still and she felt that she paled, then flushed, then paled again, and a sense of shame and guilt oppressed her, and she hated herself. It was base —it was what Mazie called "woman’s little game.” For the remainder of the day she worked like a fiend and tried to look at nobody. When she was ready to leave she came from the dressingroom hatted afifi gloved. Mr. Howe stood at the door, casually went down to the street with her, talking pleasantly, and presently lifted his hat and left her, his grave fine eyes full upon her. That night Adela was restless. Her down-town life more than ever palled upon her. She was domestic in every taste and Instinct, by inheritance and in up-bringing. Only need for bread sent her into the working world. She knew that—and, moreover, she could not forget Mazie’s really brutal talk. Was the girl right? Perhaps shfl, Adela, was foolish and impractical. Her thought's rested again upon George Howe, and she owned to herself that he was everything that she would like in the way of a husband. He was good and kind and successful; he was pleasant to the eyes. She liked the little things about him, the way he moved hits hands, his smile, the timbre of his voice. There was rest and confidence in his presence. In the gray of the morning she finally slept with a new resolve upon her. She would try the woman’s little game! Surely it would be no sin to attract him to her—she would afterward make up for it In a thousand little ways. That morning began a new life for Adela Shaw. Her eyes were bright er, with hdpe and purpose, she powdered delicately, she arranged her hair more becomingly. There was no great change in her, but in a thousand small ways she became alluring. A bit of bright color at her throat accentuated the velvety dark of her eyes and hair. She thought of herself as attractive, a state of mind imd heart which is bloom in itself. Alw>, the excitement of her —daring thing gave her life and animation. in a few weeks others In the office

began to notice her. Jennie Thurston asked what had gotten into Adela Shaw, young Phelps would stop to chaff, and once he asked her out to lunch, and then to theaters and parks. She, formerly the lone One, became popular. But, while she often found the eyes of George Howe upon her, he became more and more aloof. She made a timid effort or two to talk to him, and although he was courteous she felt no great friendliness. She spent an agonized night or two over her forwardness, and then absolutely ignored him. But she went straight ahead with her new idea of being attractive. Young Phelps was a year her junior, but she liked going about with him. It amused her, and bolstered up her self-respect. But in her heart she was miserable.

Soon after this she realized that she loved George Howe, and with the agony of the knowledge that he did not care for her, she went to the house of “Kimball & Kimball” and engaged herself for work with them. Then she gave’ Mr. George Howe, nftanager for “Howe, Anderson & Howe,” a week’s notice. To her surprise and relief, he courteously accepted her resignation. He did not ask her a question as to why she was going. It half killed her that he did not care enough —but had he asked her she would-not have known how to answer. A substantial increase of salary was her reason to the rest of the office. A week in her new a week a year in loneliness, passed, and Saturday night, one lovely, breathing, rose-scented June night, found her face-down upon her bed, crying it out in the approved woman’s way. Her face was tear-stained; she no longer felt nor wished to be alluring. She was simply wretched. And then she heard the landlady’s voice at the door. “Someone to see you—out on the porch,” she said briefly and was gone - Thinking of some woman friend, she wiped her face, Save a vicious pulf or two at her hair and dress, and went down, still not knowing nor caring how she looked. From a porch chair in the dusk rose the figure of Mr. George Howe. He reached out his hand and, taking 'hers, looked about to see if they were alone. Distrusting the open lodging-house windows, he asked her to walk, and without waiting for her to consent, drew her arm under his and took her out upon the street. When they had reached a little park space he suddenly stopped and gazed down at her. She was drooping, tired, cried-out —and a bit slant. “Look here,” he said* abruptly, “do you know that I love you? Did you leave to get rid of me? Do you know how miserable I am without you? Didn’t you see all the time how—it waa with me? Answer.” But she could only shake her head. Shame and truthfulness overwhelmed her. He pursued relentlessly. "Can you truthfully say that you never could — love me?” Again she shook her head. “Answer me in words,” he urged. A new, fine courage came to her. “Oh,” she said, with gentle vehemence, drawing her hands away from him, “I—do —love you. No, stay away till I tell you. I do—but at first I didn’t —really. I was just lonesome and miserable and I —wanted a home. I liked you and so I deliberately tried to attract you. Now you will hate me. It was cheap and—unthinkable —and unwomanly. I tried to make you—want me. And when I—thought you wouldn’t, I found that I had — learned to love you. I couldn’t stand it, do I went away. I —am —very miserable, and I’m not fit to love—after doing such a—” His low, contented laugh made her look up. He took both her hands. “You —darling!” he said. “No other woman on earth would tell what she had done, or think it unwomanly! Be comforted —for I loved you long before you began to blossom out and attract flies—like young Phelps! I actually thought you might—care for that boy! I was —jealous. Say again that you—really love me.” She said it again, but still he was not content. Arm in arm they walked under the summer moon, arm in arm they talked and planned—and talked the immemorial nonsense of lovers! She, wondering, blessed Mazie, and the woman’s little game— is to love and be loved in return. (Copyright, 1913. by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)