A SIMPLE STORY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19783, 7 May 1926, Page 6

A SIMPLE STORY.

(By Kathleen O’Brien, in the DailyChronicle.) “I’m sorry I must run up to town,” said Lucia, “but if I don’t get some more of that kasha right away, they may bo sold out. I’ll bo back about seven. Jane will give you some tea. And there arc two of my library books you may like to look at. ‘Cobwebs,’ by Elizabeth de Luxe —short stories, those are—and ‘James and Helen,’ by Paul Le Strand. I turned to the second story in “Cobwebs,” the one called “Aftermath”; the one of which Lysander Smoothface had said in the “Indicator,” “in its delicacy, fragility, and refinement, it is comnarnble with Tehehov, Katharine Mansfield, and myself.” It began thnsi— She sat daintily lingering the long fringe of the silken scarf at which she had seen him gaze wistfully, yet with so impenetrable an air of not seeing the thing that lay before his so present vision (as the Colonel had said, “taking his eye off the ball”). . . . But then, even Vera, with all her tact and insurmountable charm, soaring bird-like into the empyrean of her own boundless atmos phere, had not been able to penetrate further into his citadel-than he, witl\ white, swiftly-moving fingers and pathetic mastiff’s eyes, had desired she should go. He had said, “How like a woman!” (“And so, by Jove, it was!” the Colonel, red and tweeded, had confirmed.) But was it? She had asked Vera, and Vera, drooping her wonderful eyelashes to the white mysteries of her check-bones, had replied. . . . But what matter what she replied? Or even that she replied so. smoothing with her long marquise hand (“A wonderful hand for the overlapping grip!” the Colonel had said), the edge of her wrap-over skirt. . . . “Wait.” I said, “where am I? Is this a story, or is what Lysander Smoothface calls a flowing of the stream of consciousness? I don’t think I’m delicate enough, or fragile enough, or something-or-other enough, for this sort of thing. I like something with substance to it. something I can get my teeth into. Tho only person I cau get my teeth into so far is the Colonel. Possibly- I am too simpleminded for Elizabeth de Luxe. I will try Paul Lc Strand.” I remembered seeing Paul Lc Strand’s “James and Helen” described by a responsible critic ns "a brilliant study of manners by a young author with a lustred, gemlike style.” I took it up, therefore, with interest. I dipped into its mijldlc pages and read this: “James looked across tlie table at Helen. She had on her brick-coloured dress tonight, the one that best revealed her abundant ugliness. Ho liked the independent lift of tho square, masculine jaw He liked the prominent collar-bones, the greasv complexion, the rod protuberances of her elbows. She was talking about the bank rate to old Sir Prian Karnpopodopolous: James thought, what would she say if I kissed her? Suddenly he knew that he must kiss her. Sweeping away the soup with his arm, lie leaned across Sir Priam and kissed Helen loudly on the chin. She struggled, swearing at him. He liked her struggling; be liked her swearing at him. He kissed her again. She attacked him with her fish-fork. He seized the shoulder-strap of her evening dress, which snapped in bis hand, revealing a white line across her sunburnt’ skin . . “Stop,” I said, “where did this extraordinary young man pick up these incredible people? I do not believe these things happened at any dinner party outside a lunatic asylum. Where, oh where shall 1 turn for the apparently forgotten gifts of simplicity and aoigpA&feS* '

Suddenly T noticed, beneath Lucia's two library books, a third volume. It was Betty's ‘‘Tiny Mites’ Annual." I opened it at random and rend: MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY. “ ‘What shall we give mother for her birthday?’ Peggy asked Joan; ‘wc must give her something very nice, because wc love her so mujJ).’ “ T know.’ replied Joan, ‘let us make her an iron-holder. What fun it will be!’ “‘Oh. yes.” answered Peggy, clapping her hands with ‘wc will do”it all ourselves, and keep it for a surprise.’ ‘‘For the rest of the week Peggy and Joan spent all their time when they were not doing lessons making their present for mother. “ ‘Wouldn't my two little girls like to come for a nice walk with me?’ mother would say, smiling. “ ‘Oh, mother, dear,’ they would reply, "we would love to, but wc are so very busy. And we can't tell you about it yet. It's a great secret, you see. . . “Saints be praised!” I said, “here be decent, kindly people with credible motives and uncomplicated egos. Peggy and Joan for me!" “Sp it was the “Tiny Mites’ Annual’’ that Lucia found me engrossed in when returned.