Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1916 — ADRIFT [ARTICLE]

ADRIFT

By ELIZABETH SHIELDS.

Her hair was golden and her large, inquiring eyes were brown. They flashed with great hopes and the wonderful dreams of youth. She arrived in New York with the conviction that an amazing adventure was waiting for her each time she turned a corner. Shelived alone for one week in the goal city of the United States and, of course, it happened. On the first day of her second week’s stay in the oldfashioned brown-stone boarding house, she descended the dark, musty-smell-ing halls, with the dim gas jets burning to the dining room for luncheon. Claire was not only dewy, fresh and rosy, she f/ad cultivated an air of dash and she was wistful, but of this latter quality she was utterly unconscious. When she entered the dining room she found a stranger at her table. New York is overfilled with pretty girls, but Gilbert Brown sat up when he looked at Claire. Claire looked him over completely without, apparently, taking her eyes from the cream pitcher in front of" her. He was too big, she decided. She shrank from men so broad and with such square chins. There was something. so delicate about her, she seemed a little beyond Gilbert Brown, but he started to talk anyway. # Luncheon finished, they went up the stairs to a still gloomier room, known as the library. After another halfhour’s acquaintance he felt free to inquire, “Haven’t you anyone to look after you?” She answered with a lilting laugh, “No one’s ever taken care of me. I only have Aunt Annie, who was glad I came to New York.” “Go back home, child,” he warned her; “you won’t stand being banged about here.” She gave the man a long, speculative glance. “I haven’t any home to go to,” she laughed lightly, dismissing the subject forever. A thought flashed into her golden head that here was a chance for adventure. She wanted to dance and dine in the restaurants, and herweek in New York proved that she probably never would, unless she went alone. She astonished the man by telling him this. All her girlish desires for experience beamed trustfully from her brown eyes qs she talked. “I’ll take you to a show,” he offered eagerly. “First, we’ll have dinner with a cabaret, then # show after,” he urged. Still Claire hesitated. The opportunity so suddenly presented took her breath away. His eyes were burning into hers in an uncomfortable w-ay. The temptation to seek adventure was too strong to deny. Upstairs in the tiniest hall bedroom ever built into a boarding house Claire dressed for the evening, aglow with the wonder of the adventure on which she was starting. When she met Brown her eager brown eyes looked directly into his. Her tight grasp on his arm gave him the feeling of being a protector in a deeper sense than ever before. She carried her head high, animated with the joy of living. She intoxicated Brown. The* cheap dazzle of Broadway wearied him, but Claire laughed up at him in childish excitement.

“Do you like this sort of thing?” he questioned wonderingly. “I can’t thank you enough for taking me,” she chirped; “it’s all more beautiful that I ever dreamed, much more wonderful!” She started for home willingly when he suggested it. “You must not come again,” he cautioned her; “other men will ask you.” “But I want to come again,” she protested. Secretly Brown made up his mind that in the morning he would look up the first train to her home town and see that she took it, if he had to take her to the station himself. Aloud he said, “You’re the nicest little girl I ever saw!” Claire placed her soft palm over his mouth. “You’ve told me every minute that I’m pretty.” He caught her hand and held it. He knew he should drop it, but she looked at him with bright, happy eyes and smiled. Brown’s heart always ruled his head, and at the touch of her soft little arm against his, he drew her close to him. He covered her kisses. “I want you with me always, sweet one,” he whispered in a trembling voice, “I don’t want to let you go.” She put her arms around him and kissed him. Releasing her he drew his' breath in sharply. “I shouldn’t have talked to you at all. You’re tqo good for men like me. Tomorrow —” he continued. Smiling sweetly into his face Claire interrupted. “Tomorrow we’ll go adventuring again.” Brown clenched her hands in his strong grip. “I don’t want to let you go out of my life* but-—” “I shan’t. We’ll be perfectly happy together.” Claire laughed rind cuddled! closer to him. Then she whispered, "This Is my first proposal!” It was several minutes before Gilbert Brown could speak. In his heart, which was big, he was glad for the innocence of her. “Little treasure,” he murmured, “Til be a good husband to you.” '(Copyright, 1916, bv the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)