She sighed. "For years?"
"One—perhaps two." His voice became gay and bantering again. "My dear Rhoda," he said, "I'm extremely sorry if I really spoiled your party, but I don't believe I did—not altogether, anyhow. Underneath, I think you enjoyed it." He took her small hand in his; he wondered why it was so cold and listless.
At the door leading into the hall he paused and looked back "Oh," he said, "there was one thing I forgot to tell you! You see, part of my story wasn't altogether true. Mrs. Pollen—or rather, Mrs. Mackintosh—left Mackintosh after five years or so. She's in the movies—doing very well, I understand. She would; wouldn't she? Of course, she was no good to begin with. But that didn't spoil the point of my story, did it? Good-by, Rhoda, my dear." He was gone.
Mrs. Ennis did not move until she heard the street door close; she waited even a little longer, following the sound of Burnaby's footsteps as they died away into the night; finally she walked over to the piano, and, sitting down, raised her hands as if to strike the keys. Instead, she suddenly put both her arms on the little shelf before the music-rack and buried her head in them. The curtains tip-tapped on the window-sill; the room was entirely quiet.
DARKNESS[5]
By IRVIN S. COBB
(From The Saturday Evening Post)
There was a house in this town where always by night lights burned. In one of its rooms many lights burned; in each of the other rooms at least one light. It stood on Clay Street, on a treeless plot among flower beds, a small dull-looking house; and when late on dark nights all the other houses on Clay Street were black blockings lifting from the lesser blackness of their background, the lights in this house patterned its windows with squares of brilliancy so that it suggested a grid set on edge before hot flames. Once a newcomer to the town, a transient guest at Mrs. Otterbuck's boarding house, spoke about it to old Squire Jonas, who lived next door to where the lights blazed of nights, and the answer he got makes a fitting enough beginning for this account.