Reading High School - Arxalma Yearbook (Reading, PA)

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12 THE RED and a bottle of mucilage on an open dic- tionary. Elizabeth flung off her hat and coat and fairly attacked the confusion in a joyous desperation, for at first it seemed a mountainous task. She made a pretty picture with her flimsy diuher gown tuck- ed up and her hair with the forgotten flowers in it lying in a slipped coil on her shoulders. She worked swiftly and cap- ably, cleared the place of the contradic- tory odds and ends, and packed the trunk with intelligent exactness, stopping only for a moment to kiss Dan's tweed cap and calfskin note book. Once finished, she lighted the lamp under the yellow glass shade and the candles in their sconces. The place was restful now, and pretty, only the trunks with shut lids telling of departure. She was standing rosy and breathless, when she heard the key in the lock. This meant that Dan was divided from her on- ly by a door,-would soon stand before her. The thought loomed up overpower- ingly as she slipped behind a screen and sat down on a velvet draped dais. Her heartbeats filled her throat, she felt weak and dizzy. Thehgambler's chance she had taken became startlingly clear to her. What if she had assumed, hoped,-dared too much?-if it were too late? Dickl she heard Dan call as he closed the door. Silence followed. She could fairly feel his amazement as he looked about. Dick! The voice was puzzled. Say-what the deuce- She heard him go into another room and then another. He recrossed the studio, paused halfway, and silence fell again. This lasted so long, a curiosity like hunger made Elizabeth creep along on her knees and peer from behind the screen. Dan was standing in the center of the room, one of the roses that had fallen from her hair in his hand, and staring at it with a look that made a line she had read somewhere leap into her memory: His face had the brightness of a seraplisf' V Dan, she called. The word ended in a sighing sob. He turned slowly, gazed back at her, but did not move. Dan-you might come and speak to me when I've cleaned the place so nicely . AND BLACK -and packed-your trunks, she said, her mouth quivering pitifullyg and to her everlasting amazement she laid her head prone on the dusty dais, and wept only as a woman does when she has lost every- thing, or has seen heaven open before her. Dan was beside her before she was tin- ished speaking. He made a movement as if he 'would pick her up and fold her to him, but.checked it and gazed at her with eyes suffering with pain. It was as un- real as delirium and so sweet that it hurt him to see her crouching there in her dis- heveled loveliness in his studio, the hour almost midnight., But why had she come? A reckless impulsiveness had always been one of her characteristics, and she had followed it tonightg perhaps because he had hurt her this morning, perhaps be- cause she had heard he was leaving New York. He dared not let his leaping heart interpret her presence according to its need. The sobs stopped, and Elizabeth sat for- ward on the dais, her face hidden in her hands. The lamplight made her loosened hair, with the trailing iiowers, luminous in patches, he saw her white bare shoul- ders,' lifted by the little sobs that ran through 'her. She looked very young, pit- ifully astray, and abjectly penitent. Dan, she whispered, without looking at him, do you know why I've come? To say good-bye? You heard I was leaving, I suppose. I-I don't like saying good-bye, Elizabeth. Besides you shouldn't have come-as late as this. It was a reckless thing to do. She stood up, her pale, sweet face lift- ed.. She was longing to creep to his heart. She was anticipating the rapture of feel- ing his arms about her, comforting her. I had to come, Dan, she said simply, and looked at him with a full, soft direct- ness. There is no question of the right or wrong. To keep my heart from break- ing I had to see you t0I1lg1lt.-H She placed her hands upon his should- ers, and her voice in the quiet room made him ache under the new, sure joy creeping through him. You said hard things to me today, and they were all true. But if I were very different from now on, forever, dear- could you love me again?

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