Linda Condon

nearly resembled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon's gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept for formal occasion, it got out of bed with her, r

le webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it away in a sort of ritual. Even with these publicly invisible garments a difference of choice existed between the two: Mrs. Condon's preference was for insertions, and Linda's for shado

faintest perceptible flush on her healthy pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely uncomfortable, usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's

nsive veil to shreds and dropped a French model hat into the tub. After a distressing sickness she had gone to sleep fully dress

ption. This was not an unusual opinion. Linda observed that she was always condemning men in gene

ing a cigar; cigarettes don't matter. Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; they're not as dependable as the others. A man with a good cigar-you must know the good from the bad-i

o sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does mother

could it make Mr. Jasper conceited to give her a gold

emarks-Linda had an instinctive feeling of drawing away. The ot

d, the kiss made visible. Then she laid away the things scattered about the room

stions wearied her. She was, as well, continually bothered by her inability to impress upon them how splendid her mother was. Some of them she was certain did not appreciate her. Mrs. Condon a

es or reason; and Linda was afraid that she would be unsuccessful and never have the perfect time her mother wanted for her. In the first pla

e pillars, Mrs. Randall captured her. "Why, here's Linda-all-alone," Mrs. Randall sa

of her head. Her frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a glittering diamond pin, and her soft cold hands were loaded with jewels. She frightened Linda, really, although she could not say why. Mrs. Randall was a great deal like the witch in a fairy-story,

ons, and why shouldn't she? Your mother is very pleasant, to be

ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda of a wad

get married again-with that blondine of hers. Wouldn't you rather hav

st of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those fat china figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the familiar bewildered f

ave that?" she

Miss Skillern, b

You really can. And you may say that, as a matter of fact

Skillern exactl

?' While now, before my face, you try to deny it." It was plain to Linda that Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. She moved her lor

spectable person thinks of her goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr. Rennert,' I'l

unced judicially; "proof. We

Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left yesterday, heard it direct. George A. Jasper

ried. But her mother didn't know that; probably Mr. Jasper had not given it a thought. She was at the point of making this clear, when it seemed to

and then, of course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men,

n, "you needn't say anything at all to your mama.

nks me," Linda re

llern, with rolling lips, "I'd put you over

e vision of Miss Skillern performing such an operation as she had described cut it

ly above. Instead, she continued down to the floor where there were various games in the corridor leading to the billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking

olate cover, his gaze arrested by her irr

nda Condon." Obeying a sudden impulse, she d

the magazine put away. "So

er, or the other men with fat stomachs, the old men with dragging feet. It embarrassed her to meet his gaze, it wa

re you

e I am. Places are all alike," she continued conversationally. "We're mostly a

, from that short single exclam

" he added, "it's plai

on easily; "I'd rather be in a garden

r lived in a

. I told mother but she laughed at me

without further protest his name for her. "You are right, too, about the hedge-the highest and thickest in creation. I should recommend a pseudo-classic house, Georgian, rather small, a whit

y nice," Linda replie

I always see you in the evening ... at the piano. I'm not so bored, now." Little flames of red burned in either thin cheek. "What nonsense!" Suddenly he was tired. "This i

y. "I mean to choose the right man. Mother says that'

A

this was a most unp

e lay! Has sh

. Jasper in a rolling chair, and he has loads and l

, then, till

s no on

ly preferable to the righte

s perfect," she

succeed at it, though. Your mo

said ecstatically. "She's much

or a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more potent

to hear him; he was talking as though she were grown up,

ly different then-there were deep adventurous forests with holy chapels in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise on the

, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical herbs, and a

le for the creed. He lived in Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in the Platonic Academy o

a quizzical light in

om intellectual comprehension. The endless service of beauty. Of course, a woman-but never the animal; the spirit always. Born in the spirit, serv

r would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long ago, understood....

"Very well

ched them. Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone-banished by the other destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it rel

e de Lyons on a sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone street and coppice; a word, a m

ic truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead into gold; natural

t it was a service of the body made incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Neve

la sua mente, l

d, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. She was used to elder enigmas of speech; her norm

of longing grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty-not a payment for prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ...

re being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do somethin

away," he

owly, and, with Linda standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her shoulder. It hurt, but instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, partly supported him. She pressed the bell that signaled f