Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 304, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1919 — WAY OF SECRETS [ARTICLE]

WAY OF SECRETS

By NELL ADAIR.

I don’t believe in secrets. You can go on thinking that yon have a perfectly good secret, which no one in the world suspects, and all at once the secret will pop out at you—laughing, so to speak, in your, face. I knew, when I confided in Sallie and Polly, the twins, that they were absolutely trustworthy. Neither oi these cousins would betray me, if it cost her life. Ydtt . see, we were brought up together, and felt a mutual Interest In each other’s welfare. From pinafore days, we freely confided oui troubles and Joys, confessing the budding attachments too, which seem too sllly4o tell one’s mother. I didn’t have a mother, though I tried to borrow theirs until I was old enough to keep house for Daddy; I could feel that her sympathy in my case, was not the same as it was with the twin daughters. I can’t remember just when I began to care for David. For that was the secret —my love for David, which I kept buried from sight in the “worthiest” corner of my heart. David was so good and wise and supenor altogether, that it seemed presumption for foolish mey to love him at all. But I did —and that was unWise as David was, this fact never entered his head. He wai so much older, you see, and accustomed to the society of older and more important persons than his senior partner’s daughter. Daddy and he were lawyers, and when daddy was left alone in the big house, and I growing up over at Aunt Mollie’s, David managed the greater part of the business, while daddy formed a habit of wandering about in distant lands in search of forgetfulness. Now, that he was back contented with his loved wife’s daughter, David was still left the burden of care —having so long been the business head. And that may have accounted for the new worry wrinkles around his eyes, and the. whitening hair at his temples, which only made him more distinguished and attractive in my eyes. We had spent many comfy evenings together before daddy’s library fire, when my dresses were growing longer, and my hair learning the process of “being done up.” My ! How I loved David then; he was the hero of every book that I read and every play that I saw. and he never guessed. With my housekeeping dignity, came many lovers to woo. Yes, many, 1 frankly admit It. I could count more admirers of my own, than Polly and Sallie together, and I sometimes think that It Was my Indifference which kept them guessing. It was when my cousins accused me if being a coquette, that I confided to them my love for David. They were speechless with astonishment at first. They couldn’t understand it, 1 fancy, any more than could David. And at that I broke down and cried. “If my love for him is so unbelievable to you,” I said, “David will nevei know. I can’t go and tell him about it, so I shall have to live single al) my days.” “Why!” said Sallie, “David is sure that you are In love with Bobby Brant I know this from remarks he has made.” “And he is glad for you,” Polly added, “he told me himself that Bobby Brant was an ‘exceptionally fine young man.’” “Glad!” I exclaimed. “Isn’t there some way—some diplomatic way, I mean,” Sallie suggested, “that you could show him your affection? Perhaps he’s like these older he roes in books—loving you to distrae tlon and seeing no hope in bls case.” One evening, when I’d cried my nose red, and had sent Bobby Brant home in a huff, David came into the garden as I miserably hoped he would,;and seated himself at my side in the couch hammock. He looked so nice, and white faced and kind, that I wanted to put my aching head right down on his shoulder —yes I did, but instead with the perversity which usually seized me in his presence, I gazed straight ahead, without a welcoming smile. “Met Bobby Brant going out.” he said; and looked at me questtOningly. Carelessly I hummed the line* of a , song. “He’ll be coming back again to rndT “Undoubtedly,” David tersely replied and we were syent. Presently he spoke. . — “I’m going away in the morning, Nell, to be gone a very long time. 1 need change of scene. This Is goodbye.” . I was losing him forever. Positively the realization came to me. In a few moments he would be gone, and there was no way that I could hold him? Shadows enveloped us. We were very still. Then in start! ness, Sallie’s voice from an. inner room. Directly through the open window behind us came her words: “Poor Bobby Brant,” -she said, “he knows now that his goose is cooked. I wonder if he suspects that it is David whom Nell really loves.” “Didn’t you guess that she loved David long before she told us so?” Polly asked. “Sure,” came back my other cousin’s voice. “Everybody knows that fact, 1 guess, but David.’’ Coldly I quaked in my hammock. Wen br&tlHessiy, joyously, David leaned toward nfe — f - A *“ 1 “If th at,,is true,” he. whispered, “11 such a- wonderful, .beautiful thing can be true—Oh! tell me Nell, and end the' hopeless longing of years,” t So that is why I don’t believe In s» crets, and that is also why—David did not go away. (CopyrUM. Ul«. WMt»rn N«w»pap«r UnioW