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HE had won.

SHE

By I. C.

She had succeeded in putting the "other woman" out of his life. The way she did it was to show him such writhing, despairing, menacing suffering that he was completely crumpled. He never could endure pain. He was born for happiness. Nature, sitting off to one side, and musing on her handiwork, might have said of him: "What's the use of a dimple like that if not to be shown? Let those without dimples look solemn." Intellectually, he always welcomed struggle, and his bill for books far exceeded all others. But emotionally, while susceptible, and hungering for far more than his disappointingly empty marriage had given him, he shrank from stress, and he dipped into life rather lightly. He did it very charmingly, too, and with a fair degree of pleasure for himself when things went smoothly, but he was not geared for trouble.

So when it came, he followed the line of least resistance, that being to relieve her suffering, which was apparently greater than his in giving up the "other woman." And as for the "other woman," he knew he could count on her not to let her own suffering show, and anything he did n't have to see he knew he could endure. It was n't for him to do this, but it was easier than any alternative he could pic

ture.

easy

Therefore he lied his way back to a situation which he conscientiously prepared, tended, and labeled "her happiness." "She pathetically smiled her gratitude and said, "Just give me time."

He was immensely assisted and compensated in this effort by the fact that he had recently become vividly aware of the overwhelming charm of his little daughter, who inherited his keen, rather playful attitude toward life, likewise his dimple. He realized that any upheaval involving the "other woman" would doubtless deprive him of this new joy. So he found

himself held fast by a combination of love for his daughter, gallantry for his wife, and his own dread of witnessing pain.

Both worked hard at the undertaken task of her happiness, he whenever it confronted him apart from his work, his books, his many interests, connections, acquaintances, the various forms of emotional stimulation which he still enjoyed, and his daughter; and she every hour in the twenty-four, of all the days of every month, for many years, tensely, tearfully, patiently, gratefully. But always there could be seen in the depths of her hungry eyes a fear.

Whenever the fear surged up big and portentous, and threatened to engulf her whole being, she worked the more feverishly over everything that concerned the daughter's welfare, giving almost prayerful devotion to every smallest detail of her health, her clothing, her education, her amusements. Such work felt real to her. It gave her a sense of being needed, and, besides, it was all for his daughter. Sometimes she could nearly still the fear by telephoning to him in his office, and it helped to shorten the long days, too. Occasionally his voice indicated that he was busy and found it difficult to say just the needed thing, but often he sounded splendidly reassuring, and at such times the fear melted down, down to almost nothing, and momentarily she basked in the relief as a tired convalescent does in the Yet it never wholly disappeared. It never left her so she could sink into a peaceful sleep and wake to find it gone. It was the one thing she knew was utterly and inevitably her own.

sun.

He did his best, and was always sorry when his efforts were uneven. He vibrated between states of nervous depression and an incorrigible, inappropriate buoyancy. He told her of the various problems in his business, which he loved; he described the different interesting per

sonalities of those with whom he lunched (or most of them; all except those he thought would increase her fear); he brought all manner of clever people home to dinner; he talked of the books he read; he took her to the theater, to meetings, so she could be in touch with all the isms of the day; and, what was really the longest reach for him, he listened while she told the whole story of what filled the days for her while he was at the office. He was a good deal of an artist, and often these endeavors of his gave him real delight. He described people and episodes with the humor and verve of a skilled writer, and he often felt a glow of achievement that was not all due to her gratitude.

She envied him his ability and his obvious happiness in the exercise of it. Somehow this man whom she had won for the second time, and who was hers (at least he did n't belong to another now), was as unconfinable as an odor. He was close to her, but far away.

He was faithful, affectionate, devoted, even passionate at times, but yet remote. He had given her everything; he had done as he had promised, had wiped out the past (the "other woman"), had built again with her. But what was it that was built? Where was it? She would get to it if she could only see the way. But all that showed to her anxious eyes was a crisscross of roads, with

a mist clouding every one, and at every turn that same old haunting fear.

As to the "other woman," she had helped him keep his promise to give her up (that was part of loving him), and had gone her way, not, of course, rejoicing at first, but finally. She had learned somewhat about doing a hard thing like that when she had pulled away from the wreck of her own marriage a few years before, and she knew now as then that her children needed and deserved a happy mother. As she put it: "A heartbroken woman is of no particular use to herself or the world; so why be one? And besides, what happiness I have known can't be lost. It's mine, and nothing can hurt it. And perhaps some day, somehow, things will be arranged so there will be room for all the choked-off happinesses to blossom freely, each without sapping the life of another. Meanwhile, there's a deal of interesting work to be done, and more than one kind of joy to be had. And then, too,"-this she said very softly to herself as a sort of postscript to her conclusions,-"he and I might not have kept the flame alive, either. We might have found ourselves just going through the motions like most of the others. It may be better as it is."

This story has no ending. It is still going on, and she who had won is getting what she asked for-time.

Order

By PAUL SCOTT MOWRER

IT is half-past eight on the blossomy bush:

The petals are spread for a sunning;
The little gold fly is scrubbing his face;
The spider is nervously running
To fasten a thread; the night-going moth
Is folding his velvet perfection;
And presently over the clover will come
The bee on a tour of inspection.

IN LIGHTER VEIN

The Chinese Philosopher and the European War

By STACY AUMONIER

It may seem a remarkable face arly all

T may seem a remarkable fact that in

nations are engaged, the oldest, wisest, and greatest nation is not only not participating, but is apparently looked upon as a negligible quantity by the belligerent powers. Surely no greater tribute could be paid to the wisdom and the greatness of the Chinese.

Some one has said that "No man was ever so wise as some Chinamen look." But will not these cataclysmal European happenings demonstrate a denial of this statement? Will they not prove that some one is as wise as some Chinamen look, and that person the Chinaman? In his rock garden near Peking the Chinese. philosopher sits fanning himself. His mind communes with the spirits of his ancestors, and meditates upon the unforgetable wisdom of the Lord Confucius.

He recalls how a few idle centuries ago the continuity of these peaceful meditations was disturbed by the sudden arrival of restless infidels on his shores. Even now he can see their strained, feverish faces. To the trained eye they differed from one another; they spoke different languages, wore different clothes, had different casts of countenance, but to the all-seeing eye they were fundamentally the same. They preached the same doctrine-a doctrine they labeled “progress, civilization." They professed several mushroom faiths, the dominant one being called "Christianity," concerning which

they differed profoundly, and split up into many subdivisions. The Chinese philosopher recalls the faces of their emissaries who came to him and said:

"Wake! You must advance, you must bestir yourself!" bestir yourself!" He can almost recall the tones of mild remonstrance of his own voice.

"To what end?"

"To progress. To become civilized, to enter into the great world competition.'

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They hardly stayed to listen to the serene philosophy which his master would have inspired him to instil into them if they had stayed to listen, they were in so restless a hurry. They said:

"If you do not do this, we will destroy you."

They were off again to struggle with one another for good positions on his shores, there to carry on their strange and unaccountable practices of buying and selling, and distributing soul-destroying spirits to the undisciplined, and to erect tin temples to their parvenu Gods. He saw their fussy gunboats on his rivers destroying human life.

Some there were who were disturbed by these actions, and came to him and said: "What shall we do concerning this? Shall China stretch forth her hand?"

And he had answered:

"China is linked to the sun and moon by immemorial ties. Look into your heart, my children, and read the words of the All-Wise."

And then, as the centuries rolled by, he observed that it was not China they destroyed; it was one another. The wind bells tinkle under the eaves of the pagoda. Soon in all her glory the sun will be setting. A messenger enters and kneels in low obeisance.

"Excellency, the Western World is at war. Already ten million men have fallen by the sword."

"Ai-e-e!" He draws the wind through his teeth with a whistling inflection. "What Western World is this?" he asked at length.

"They who enunciate the doctrine of progress, civilization, culture, O Excellency!"

"Ai-e-e!"

He meditates upon this for some time.

He harbors no feelings of animosity against these people who had threatened to destroy him; only his heart is filled with a strange, pitying misgiving that there should be so much lack of culture, so little appreciation of the value of inner progress, and so exaggerated a sense of the value of outer progress.

Wood-pigeons are cooing in their cot above the temple, and the sound, mingling with the low chanting of a priest, tends to emphasize the tranquillity of the evening. Ten million men! It is very sad, very deplorable; but he banishes these melancholy thoughts, for he knows that his mind must be occupied with far more important matters. It is the hour when, in strict accordance with immemorial precepts, he must look into his own soul.

Making the Human Machine Efficient

By RICHARD E. CONNELL

Illustrations by E. L. Barron

EFFICIENCY-that's the word

nowadays; but is n't it odd, inefficient even, that the man who kisses his wife, reaches for his hat, and opens the front door with just two scientific movements, who eats his two-minute egg every morning with six studied motions, and who shaves himself in eight and one quarter seconds by the Taylor System, has n't thought what a comparatively inefficient machine his body is?

Man is an adaptive mechanism; no doubt about it. In the good old cave days, and before, when he used to swing from tree to tree with his toes, man had toes to swing from tree to tree with.

Later, swinging from tree to tree being considered out of place in a drawingroom, and nimble prehensile toes being of but little practical assistance to the modern business man, toes became static, so to speak. Their only known use to the efficient man at present is to fill the ends of shoes.

It is obvious, therefore, that with a little patience other changes can be made in

the human body to adapt it better to the modern age of efficiency.

A noted efficiency engineer, who asks that his name for the present be withheld, has gone over the human machine with, in the manner of speaking, a fine-tooth comb. He has made the following suggestions for improving it, based on approved efficiency principles.

1. It is ridiculous for bones to be made out of bone. Reinforced concrete, with steel hinges at the joints, would be more serviceable.

2. White is not a good color for skin, and skin is a poor material for skin to be made of. A skin of pale-green rubber or leather would be pleasing to the eye, would n't show the dirt, and would last a lifetime.

3. It is absurd to have two eyes in front when one would do. One eye should be placed in the back of the head. Better still, a third eye could easily be developed. If a man tried constantly to see with the back of his head, in a few generations a third eye would undoubtedly sprout there.

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