Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 169: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SOUL OF staring at the round white face of the tiny alarm-clock on the bureau. Then, after a time, he found himself thinking that it was unusually early for him to be awake, for the clock hands pointed to half past five. He slid noiselessly out of bed. For a moment he stood irresolute; then he began to dress swiftly, watching his still sleeping wife with a furtive air and feeling somehow very guilty. When he was fully dressed he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and paused an instant to view the completed picture. | The mirror showed a short, rotund little man in a light gray suit, with a narrow ‘\ black leather belt that bulged out promi- nently in front; a round, pink and white almost cherubic face, with light blue eyes, eyebrows so light they were almost unno- ticeable; and sandy hair with a tiny bald spot on top. But what Henry Jones saw was a pair of sad, wistful eyes with the soul shining out of them—a soul patiently yearning for the satisfaction of its desires. The little suburban village in which Henry Jones lived and worked was just be- ginning to awaken into life.as he passed down its streets that early summer morn- ing. He held himself very erect, with his chest expanded, breathing deep of the morning air and walking rapidly. A girl was coming toward him down the narrow sidewalk of the maple-lined avenue. —a trim, buoyant little figure. Henry Jones noticed her slim, silk-clad ankles as she drew closer. And he saw, too, that she wore neat, high-heeled shoes that were very trig and becoming. He watched the ankles and the shoes as they approached. Henry . Jones was an expert on the latest styles of shoes, for he was by profession a shoe clerk. But there was in his appraising re- gard of this particular pair on this partic- ular morning a look that was not wholly impersonally professional. As: the girl passed him, Henry Jones raised his eyes to her face. She was a very - pretty girl, with curving lips and soft, fluffy golden hair blowing low about her ears. He did not remember ever having seen her be- fore, but as he met her eyes he smiled—a frank, friendly, comrady sort of smile he HENRY JONES. 543 felt it was—and he heard his lips murmur- ing “ Good morning,” as his hand went to his hat. The girl did not pause, but as she passed he thought he saw that she, too, was smil- ing. And afterward he remembered vivid- ly that the pink of her cheeks had deep- ened to a sudden red, and that her long lashes. had fallen shyly. Henry Jones threw out his chest still farther and strode forward with a song in his heart. Six years before this important morning to the Jones family, Martha Lewis had married Henry Jones. At the age of | twenty-five—one year Henry’s junier—she had felt herself in a fair way of being laid upon the shelf of perpetual maaidenhood, and so she had married the prosaic, plod- ding Henry, as the only available eligible unattached young man of her acquaint- ance. | You are not to imagine Martha Lewis as an acrid, designing young female. She was merely a comparatively unattractive girl according to the standards dernanded by the young men of Rosewood. Like many other girls of her type, Martha was blessed, in exchange for physical beauty, with a considerable stock of good common sense. Throughout her years of adolescence she had cherished secretly all the usual dreams and romance of young girlhoed. Then, realizing gradually that their fulfilment was — beyond her, she had put them resolutely away, and at her father’s death, when she was twenty-four, had calmly turned to face the world with the resolution to make the best of existing circumstances. ° And so she had married Henry Jones— deliberately, because she wanted to. She was in love with him, of course, just as she knew he was with her. It was not the love of her dreams, but a steadfast, practical, common sense love. Probably it was the better kind, she often told herself; and yet —because she was only human, and es- pecially because she was a woman—thefe were times when, underneath the prosaic cententment of the daily routine of her married life, she found herself wanting something more. For Henry was neither in looks nor by nature inspiring to the fe- male mind. But he made her a goed hus- GORGE OOO i < S Colin