The Shape of Fear [13]
thick veil, the edges of which touched the floor in some places. It covered the feat- ures so well that not a hint of them was visible. "There was nothing over mother's face!" cried the lady at length. "Not a thing," acquiesced Hoyt. "I know, because I had occasion to touch her face just before I took the picture. I put some of her hair back from her brow." "What does it mean, then?" asked the lady. "You know better than I. There is no ex- planation in science. Perhaps there is some in -- in psychology." "Well," said the young woman, stammer- ing a little and coloring, "mother was a good woman, but she always wanted her own way, and she always had it, too." "Yes." "And she never would have her picture taken. She didn't admire her own appear- ance. She said no one should ever see a picture of her." "So?" said Hoyt, meditatively. "Well, she's kept her word, hasn't she?" The two stood looking at the photographs for a time. Then Hoyt pointed to the open blaze in the grate. "Throw them in," he commanded. "Don't let your father see them -- don't keep them yourself. They wouldn't be agreeable things to keep." "That's true enough," admitted the lady. And she threw them in the fire. Then Vir- gil Hoyt brought out the plates and broke them before her eyes. And that was the end of it -- except that Hoyt sometimes tells the story to those who sit beside him when his pipe is lighted.
A CHILD OF THE RAIN
IT was the night that Mona Meeks, the dressmaker, told him she didn't love him. He couldn't believe it at first, because he had so long been accustomed to the idea that she did, and no matter how rough the weather or how irascible the passengers, he felt a song in his heart as he punched transfers, and rang his bell punch, and signalled the driver when to let people off and on. Now, suddenly, with no reason except a woman's, she had changed her mind. He dropped in to see her at five o'clock, just before time for the night shift, and to give her two red apples he had been saving for her. She looked at the apples as if they were in- visible and she could not see them, and stand- ing in her disorderly little dressmaking parlor, with its cuttings and scraps and litter of fab- rics, she said: "It is no use, John. I shall have to work here like this all my life -- work here alone. For I don't love you, John. No, I don't. I thought I did, but it is a mistake." "You mean it?" asked John, bringing up the words in a great gasp. "Yes," she said, white and trembling and putting out her hands as if to beg for his mercy. And then -- big, lumbering fool -- he turned around and strode down the stairs and stood at the corner in the beating rain waiting for his car. It came along at length, spluttering on the wet rails and spitting out blue fire, and he took his shift after a gruff "Good night" to Johnson, the man he relieved. He was glad the rain was bitter cold and drove in his face fiercely. He rejoiced at the cruelty of the wind, and when it hustled pedestrians before it, lashing them, twisting their clothes, and threatening their equilib- rium, he felt amused. He was pleased at the chill in his bones and at the hunger that tortured him. At least, at first he thought it was hunger till he remembered that he had just eaten. The hours passed confusedly. He had no consciousness of time. But it must have been late, -- near midnight, -- judging by the fact that there were few per- sons visible anywhere in the black storm, when he noticed a little figure sitting at the far end of the car. He had not seen the child when she got on, but all was so curious and wild to him that evening -- he himself seemed to himself the most curious and the wildest of all things -- that it was not surpris- ing that he should not have observed the little creature. She was wrapped in a coat so much too large that it had become frayed at the bottom from dragging on the pavement. Her hair hung in unkempt stringiness about her bent shoulders, and her feet were covered with old arctics, many sizes too big, from which the soles hung loose. Beside the little
A CHILD OF THE RAIN
IT was the night that Mona Meeks, the dressmaker, told him she didn't love him. He couldn't believe it at first, because he had so long been accustomed to the idea that she did, and no matter how rough the weather or how irascible the passengers, he felt a song in his heart as he punched transfers, and rang his bell punch, and signalled the driver when to let people off and on. Now, suddenly, with no reason except a woman's, she had changed her mind. He dropped in to see her at five o'clock, just before time for the night shift, and to give her two red apples he had been saving for her. She looked at the apples as if they were in- visible and she could not see them, and stand- ing in her disorderly little dressmaking parlor, with its cuttings and scraps and litter of fab- rics, she said: "It is no use, John. I shall have to work here like this all my life -- work here alone. For I don't love you, John. No, I don't. I thought I did, but it is a mistake." "You mean it?" asked John, bringing up the words in a great gasp. "Yes," she said, white and trembling and putting out her hands as if to beg for his mercy. And then -- big, lumbering fool -- he turned around and strode down the stairs and stood at the corner in the beating rain waiting for his car. It came along at length, spluttering on the wet rails and spitting out blue fire, and he took his shift after a gruff "Good night" to Johnson, the man he relieved. He was glad the rain was bitter cold and drove in his face fiercely. He rejoiced at the cruelty of the wind, and when it hustled pedestrians before it, lashing them, twisting their clothes, and threatening their equilib- rium, he felt amused. He was pleased at the chill in his bones and at the hunger that tortured him. At least, at first he thought it was hunger till he remembered that he had just eaten. The hours passed confusedly. He had no consciousness of time. But it must have been late, -- near midnight, -- judging by the fact that there were few per- sons visible anywhere in the black storm, when he noticed a little figure sitting at the far end of the car. He had not seen the child when she got on, but all was so curious and wild to him that evening -- he himself seemed to himself the most curious and the wildest of all things -- that it was not surpris- ing that he should not have observed the little creature. She was wrapped in a coat so much too large that it had become frayed at the bottom from dragging on the pavement. Her hair hung in unkempt stringiness about her bent shoulders, and her feet were covered with old arctics, many sizes too big, from which the soles hung loose. Beside the little