Turns about Town

by Robert Cortes Holliday

His evening with Louise began awkwardly. The pleasant interchange of being did not, as usually so happily it did with Louise, flow naturally along. Keyes was accustomed to feel that with Louise he talked better than before anyone else. He now and then wished that certain other people, upon whom he felt he had not made so favorable an impression as he deserved, could overhear him sometime with Louise. Now, curiously, with her he felt as he had with them: he could not somehow get his real machinery started. Three or four times he determined to embark upon the subject in his mind, and as many times the rising fulness in his chest and the sudden quivering of his heart daunted him. As he looked now at Louise, sitting there before him, the dignity of her as a young woman struck him, and it occurred to him as extraordinary that he could have been so intimate with her. He about concluded to put off his story until another time, at which immediately he felt much relieved.

His gaze wandered about among the familiar objects of the little parlor—the ordinary articles of the family furniture, the photographs on the mantel, the hand-painted plate on the wall,—then rested upon the framed Maxfield Parrish, which Keyes knew, with a glow of pride, to express the superior refinement of Louise's own taste. Keyes shared Louise's interest in art; he knew, and very much admired, the work of Dulac, James Montgomery Flagg, N. C. Wyeth, Arthur Keller, and many others; this was one of the fascinating bonds which united them, in division from a frivolous, material, and unsympathetic world. He glanced again now at the sumptuous Rackham book on the table, which it had been such a delight to him to give her at Christmas; and the revived discussion of æsthetics led him fairly comfortably into the subject of his own entrance into work in that field. His manuscript came out of his pocket; and, straightening up on the edge of his chair, a little nervous again in the still pause that ensued, he cleared his throat, and, in a rather diffident voice, began to read. As he proceeded and knew that his effort found favor, his want of confidence left him. He fell into the swing and color of his work; and the heart of it he tasted like fine wine as he read. In the more moving passages his voice shook a trifle, and tears very nearly came into his eyes; it was all, he felt, so beautiful. When he had concluded there was in Louise's eyes—as he looked up, and saw her sitting, leaning forward with her chin on the back of her hand, her elbow on her knee,—a strange light. It occurred to Keyes that he did not remember ever to have seen a woman's face look exactly that way before. Probably not. This was a light some men never find on land or sea. It does not shine for any man more than once or twice. They sat awhile, these two in the little parlor, and happiness roared through their veins. Louise told Keyes that she had always known that he "had it in him."

Then they arose, and they were near to each other, and their hearts were filled, and beneath the chandelier he moved his arms about her. His lips clasped hers. It was thus as it was in the story.

Keyes emerged from the brightly lighted doorway with Louise beaming tenderly after him. In his blissful abstraction of mind he neglected, on the dark porchway, to turn the corner of the house to the steps; but walked instead, straight ahead, until the world gave way beneath him, and he collapsed with a crash among the young vines.

The next week Louise, who held a position in the "Nickel's Weekly" Circulation Branch office in the Middle West, neatly typed the manuscript on one of the firm's machines. One evening they went together to post the story.... The ancient, imperturbable moon observed this momentous deed.

* * * * * * *

When Keyes put that manuscript into the mail box, he knew that it would be accepted. He felt this in his bones. He felt it in the soles of his feet and in the hair on his head.

For several days succeeding, a sensuous complacency pervaded young Keyes. In a rich haze he saw himself acclaimed, famous, adored. His nature was ardent, and he had always craved the warmth of approbation; but he had not had it, except from Louise. Now there were moments when, in a picture in his mind, he saw an attractive figure, which he recognized as himself somewhat altered, come jauntily along, amiably smiling, swinging a cane. He had always secretly desired very much to carry a cane, but he had felt uncomfortably that the humbleness of his position in life would make this ridiculous. In his moments of ambition he had hoped, sometimes, that walking-sticks would not go out (to put it so) before he came in. In the background of his mental picture Keyes recognized among the doting multitude the faces of about all of his acquaintances, some brought for the occasion from rather remote places.

Keyes felt a slight wrench of conscience in winking at this poetic liberty taken with realistic probability. When a name occurred to him the physiognomy of whose person was absent, Keyes's sense of probity was smothered, with a slight twinge of pain, by the ardor of his imagination; and place in the press was found for this person, very kindly well up in front, where a good view could be had by him of the celebrity—at this point the celebrity in the delectable vision was observed gaily to light a cigarette. Discernible in the throng, too, were some few whose mean and envious natures writhed, the psychologist in Keyes perceived, at this handsome recognition of the worth of a young man it had once been their wont to snub.

In this balmy temper of mind Keyes got down to business one morning a little late. The humdrum of a business life had begun to be somewhat more irksome than hitherto to Keyes's swelling spirit. He ruminated this morning, as he stood before his tall stool at his ledger, on the curious ill-adjustment of a universe so arranged that one of his capacity for finer things could remain so unsuspected of the world about him, and the rich value of his life to some unmeaning task-work be allowed to give. A sudden electric buzzing beneath his high desk signalled him that his presence was desired by his chief. "What now?" he thought, a little tremulously and a little irritably, as he went: he had been caught up on several slips lately. He paused respectfully in the private office doorway. Mr. Winder, from his swivel-chair, flashed up his white moustache very straight at Keyes. "Sit down," he directed. The suavity which was his habit was quite absent. Keyes felt the presence in the air of a good deal of masculine firmness.