Even
as I helped her into Jim's small curtained car and took my place at the
wheel, I knew that the things that they would say about her would be
more than I could bear. We plunged forward, and a moment later, rounding
a curve, our headlights came full upon the outlines of the old farm with
its hideous false facade. I could not resist glancing at her, though I
said nothing. Her eyes were on her hands, held loosely in her lap. She
did not look at me until, with another lurch, we had swung about again,
and all but the road in front of us was drawn back swiftly into
obscurity. I found that she had turned towards me then, and, as I laid
one hand across her arm, I felt her relax to a relieved trembling.
Before us the night crowded down over the countryside, masking its
ugliness like a film, through which our lights cut a white fissure
towards town.
SHELBY[20]
By CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
(From _The Smart Set_)
When I sit down to write of Shelby--Lucien Atterwood Shelby, the author,
whose romantic books you must have read, or at least heard of--I find
myself at some difficulty to know where to begin. I knew him so well at
one time--so little at another; and men, like houses, change with the
years. Today's tenant in some old mansion may not view the garden as you
did long ago; and the friend of a man's later years may not hold the
same opinions the acquaintance of an earlier period once formed.
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