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Show 84 ®111 'Ulose nn1! Silller 'Ollb~f roots of her hair and he studied her imperson-ally, as he would have studied any other lovely thing. "Why?" he began, then laughed. "Why what?" asked Rose, quickly. "I was about to ask you a very foolish question." "Don't hesitate," she said. "Most ques-tions are foolish." "This is worse-it's idiotic. I was going to ask you why you had n't married." With a sharp stab at the heart, Rose noted the past tense. "Why haven't you?" she queried, forcing a smile. . "There is only one answer to that quest1on, and yet people keep on asking it. They mig h.~ as well ask why you don't buy an automobtle. "Well?" continued Rose, inquiringly. "Because 'the not impossible she,' or 'he,' hasn't come, that's all." "Perhaps only one knows," she suggested. "No," replied Allison, "in any true matmg. they both know-they must." There was a long pause. A smouldering log. in the fireplace, broke and fell into the embers. The dying flame took new life and the warm glow fl!led the room. . .. "Is that why people don't buy automobiles? queried Rose, chiefly because she did not know what else to say. "The answer to that is that they do." 'ttbe :JLiobt on tbe :altar "Sounds as if you might have taken it from Alice in Wonderland," she commented. "Maybe they've had to give each other up," she concluded, enigmatically. "People who will give each other up should be obliged to do it," he returned. "May I leave my violin here? l 'II be coming again so soon." "Surely. I hope you will." "Good-night." He took her hand for a moment, in his warm, steady clasp, and subtly, Rose answered to the man -not the violin. She was deathly white when the door closed, and she trembled all the way up-stairs. When she saw herself in the mirror, she was startled, for, in her ghostly pallor, her deep eyes burned like stars. She knew, now. The woman who had so hungered for Life had suddenly come face to face with its utmost wonder; its highest gift of joy-or pain. The heart of a man is divided into many compartments, mostly isolated. Sometimes there is a door between two of them, or even three may be joined, but usually, each one is complete in itself. Within the different chambers his soul sojourns as it will, since immeasurably beyond woman, he possesses the power of detachment, of intermittence. ss |