THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 221, 6 June 1918, Page 6

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT

A STORY WiTH A MORAL

(By "Wi.»)

Once upon a time, not so very long ngo-a few weeks ptrhaps-there lived in Wellington a youth who loved ;i maid. And the maid loved him. There remained for these twain but the place, the opportunity, and the psychological moment for tht" one to blurt out the secret that was gnawing at his heart, putting him oil' his feed, and interfering with bin' slumbers, and for the otuor to blush and tremble in sweet surrender. Then everything would nssume the roseate hue with which Nature is popularly supposed io assume, and really «oes assume, on such occasions. Each knew the ..thor's secret, but Convention insisted on the game being played to .1 finish. RE must make noises ;n ,his throat, perspire al! over, and stutter over his Great Affirmation, while SHE—Oh, these women!

Now it tell upon a day, and that day a holiday, that the .youth and the maid went to ! Da>'s Day. Somewhere, eomewhen, on this bright and iuispicums occasion the youth resolved within himself the deed would be done. It might be on the boat, or the wharf, or the beach, or in the green shndes of the bush, or the briny even, that the psychological moment would present itself. No matter where and when, he swore to himself he would get a half-Nelson on t:iat psychological moment and get it i over. As soon as the conversation drift-! Ed in that direction he would—yes, he | would. And she? H-m! Tate, in a fickle mood, decreed that the psychological moment should come | when the ferry-boat was approaching j Day's Bay. They were sitting tucked up ! in 'the corner of the high seat of the lower deck umidship*, on the Ice side, a? far from tho madding crowd as it was possible to be on such an occasion. Nobody paid any attention to them. Nobody ever does. Men laughed, girls giggled, youths, in (heir uncouth way, tried to bo funny— not at the twain, but with their company- Children ran about the deck and tumbled over the feet of glaring adults. Seagulls banked, nose-dived, side-slipped, stalled, and volplaned 'ike pursuing aeroplanes. Bine sky, blue water, and' the holiday feeling superabundant everywhere. Dead ahead the ve.'duro of-the Bay grew more distinct as the hills rose, up in stately perspective with the lessening distance. And the psychological moment! "How pretty it all is!" sho eaid, dreamily. "Makes one feel quite romantic, doesn't it?" "Hey—urn!" he said, hoarsely. 'Now for it!" he said to himself. "Don't you think so?" she pursued innocently, lazily oblivions of the fact that a suppressed volcano in her vicinity was about to erupt something entirely new dud perfectly startling. . ■ With a violent effort he pulled himself together. "I've been conscious of that sort of-of-er-feeling-ahemMor some time past," he said, looking steadily at

She turned, with a smile on her face and a jest on her lips, and then caught his eye. The smile fled, the jest died a horrible death, her head swam. "Oh?" she said, as the crimson flood suffused her cheeks. Shefidgetted with Her ihandkerchicf, and tried to look five different ways at once. Then, because she had to, she returned his gaze. Deep called unto deep. "Oh?" she said again. It was a question, an invitation to' proceed. "You see," he began, "if I don't get this off my chest here and now 111 suffocate, i-'you—that is—" Upstairs, on Bin bridge, tho skipper reached out for the whistle-line, drew it taut,'and held on to it as if the father of air the fires had broken out on his ship, and he was trying to drown it wifh sheer noise. Infants bawled, old Indies jumped, elderly gentleman said "Damn! finite plainly, and people put their hands up to their ears. Ashore, in peaceful nurseries, babies awoke fretfully, and were inconsolable. Mothers fumed, and heaped ladyliko anathema upon the skipper's head. And in the corner of the upper seat on the lower deck amidships a sentence that was about to make domestic history was strangled at its birth. When the blast above had died away:

"What a tiresome nuisance that whistlins must be to people who live over here," she said. She meant, of course— well, you know finite well what she meant. And so did lie. And she knew that he knew. And lib knew that she knew that he knew. , By this time the boat was drawing alongside the wharf, and there was a general scramble for the upper deck. "I'm going to finish that sentence when we get ashore." he Paid, definitely and ouite calmly. The rublcon had been passed. "Are you?" she said, archly, and she gave his arm a tiny squeeze. This-story hns n moral. If the Eastbourne Borough Council, tvJWclj in its eccentric wisdom decrees whistle blasts— and very: nearly blasted two lives—would like to earn rhe undying srrntihide of nervous old ladies, jumpv old gentlemen, children with lender eardrums, and sleeping infants, it will apply that moral.