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"TflZ LIMIT OF THE LINE”
*By Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne
OOK! if you know of any place
that appears to better advantage
under the light of the moon than
‘The Terraces,’ I should be pleased
to discover it. But you would have
a hard time proving it, Miss Shir
ley, for it is an integral part of my
individuality to magnify my pos
sessions.”
J' /
Shirley smiled, and sighed, as her glance
swept over the magnificent home, whose white
pillars glowed beyond the green expanse of
the grounds, in the silvery mystery of the
moonlight.
‘‘This is the finest sort of philosophy, she
answered, as the chauffeur turned the current
on, and the machine started. “But ‘The Ter
races’ does not need any magnifying; it speaks
for itself, in the universal language of beauty
so perfectly harmonized, that it leaves noth
ing to be desired.” “But my mother avers.”
he said with brilliant, inquisitorial eyes, “when
I rave, that it is Paradise without an angel.”
“Never!” Shirley returned, with enthusias
tic emphasis, “as long as she herself lives to
grace it.”
“Children.” Mrs. Barry Moore observed, as
she slightly turned her head, and tied her
grey motor veil under her chin. “I am going
to be deaf to the things I should not hear, so
that you may feel at liberty to discuss any
thing from Cupid’s kingdom to the stars.”
“But unfortunately, ma mere,” Barry Moore
interposed, in a mischievous tone. “Miss
Bryan is not a sentimental young lady. She
keeps her heart jewels locked up, and only at
rare intervals allows her friends a glimpse of
the enthralling splendor within the exquisite
casket.”
“Naturally.” Shirley answered, “since 1 be
long to the great work-a-day world, and dare
not intrude my visions into its practical pre
cincts.”
“The influence of The Man of Iron,’ he said
with a soft sigh, “has frozen the flowers of
the idealist’s fancy. Your imagination could
never soar on white wings for him?”
“Like a kite,” Shirley answered, “into the
empyrean blue, if—” and then she paused.
“If what?” he demanded.
“If you gave me the right sort of mental at
mosphere.”
“Tell me. the component parts.”
“Oh, I do not know how,” she returned
evasively. “I am not a soul chemist. But, to
change the metaphor, when the curtain goes
up on the stage of life, and the lights are
turned on, and the orchestra begin to play,
soft and low, then I sometimes saunter out on
the boards, and without knowing why, or
wherefore, give to my friends the best
thoughts I ever had, the noblest aspirations,
the highest hopes of that self which is to
live —forever.”
• “I have heard you, once or twice,” he said,
dropping his lightness like a mask, “and I have
been thrilled and awed by the recital. But I
can guess at the conditions you require, the
sort of atmosphere which you expand in, and
I’ll tell you, since you refuse the task, if you
ask me, the component parts.”
“Don’t,” Shirley said, imploringly; “not to
night.”
“You do not often ask favors,” Barry Moore
said to the fair girl at his side. With an en
quiring glance, in a word-encounter, But, in
stead, you fence remarkably well. What is the
matter with you?”
“Sympathy and suspense,” Shirley answered
impulsively, and bitterly regretted the confes
sion a moment afterwards. Then Miss Bryan
took herself resolutely in hand. What the
sympathy is about, I leave you to divine; but
the suspense is about a decision I am obliged
to make, in the next few days.”
Barry Moore, with th? r?ady alertness of his
The Golden Age for July 29, 1909.
class, knew in a moment to what she re
ferred.
“You mean,” he said, “that you have to
elect to go to Europe, with Gregory Ford,
our mother and little Nell, or stay at home?
The average girl, Miss Bryan, could decide
that in ten minutes.”
“Thanks!”
“I beg you not to misunderstand,” he said,
in a grave tone, “but isn't the trip enough to
tempt any girl, with her youth and the world
all before her? Why do you hesitate?”
“That same grim old word, which has al
ways handicapped me, perhaps—finances !”
“Well, I’ll promise to take that out of your
way,” he said, after a reflection which lasted
some blocks. “I can easily procure a mort
gage on your home of from SI,OOO to $5,000 as
you may determine, after consideration that
you need.”
Shirley mentally gasped Then she took a
fleeting glance at the face of the Man of Iron,
and she found it white as the moon light.
“I think 1 comprehend how you feel about
the matter,” he went on. in a voice whose rare
vibrations struck like a strain of music on her
finer sensibilities. “You have been limited
and handicapped, since your father’s death, by
poverty, until you have taught yourself to feel
that there is no escape. That you had no right
indeed to the sunshine, and the joys common
to the lot of the shielded young woman. And
now that your chance has come for a delight
ful summer, under conditions that no normal
girl could despise, you think that you must
play the same old heroic role, and answer to
fate's superfine invitation, to be happy—no—
again! But listen! When I said that I was
your friend, I meant it; when I declared that
loyalty was the deepest fundamental of my
nature, it happened to be true. You can go, if
you desire, for I want you to make your
choices for life, untrammeled and unhandicap
ped by any thought of money!”
“Why, I should be mad,” Shirley urged, “to
enjoy one summer at the expense of my whole
future! I could never hope to pay the money
back again.’’
“That is all you know.” he said; “there is a
trolley line already planned to Water Oaks,
and your home, and the farm at the back of it,
will soon be trebled in value.”
“Then, if I do not go?”
“You will prefer absolutely to stay!” he an
swered with emphasis, and a look which sent a
swift blush to her brow.
The motor car had reached the brilliantly
lighted Terminal by this time, and as they
strolled across the plaza, Shirley paused to
wait for Mrs. Moore, who had lingered to
speak with the chauffeur a moment.
“Do you know,” Shirley said, in a pleading
voice, “that you have never told me yet the
translation of that marked passage in the
Greek Testament, that your mother gave you
on your birthday.”
Barry Moore looked up toward the stars,
and removed his rolled panama, thoughtfully.
“All the same, 1 have been discovering how
hard it is to live up to it,” he answered.
“Tell me,” Shirley said; “I have an interest
in it that I can not explain, or you understand,
now. But trust me, for the truth of the as
sertion, and tell me.”
Then Barry Moore looked down into the
beautiful eyes of the suppliant girl and said,
gravely as a priest:
“Greater love hath no man than this, that
he lay down his life for his friend.”
* * * * * * ❖ * ❖ * * * *
In the office of the Water Oaks Gazette,
Gregory Ford and Henry Brown were closing
up a long day’s work with a spirited conversa
tion on topics congenial to them. Powhattan
Morris had long since slipped into his coat and
departed to woo the goddess Pomona, who
was presumed to guard Mrs, Merton’s extra
fine grade of Elberta peaches, in her well-kept
orchard. Beyond this domain of the goddess
Pomona, Mrs. Merton was turning the residue
of Brunhilde’s sale, to be exactly accurate, the
$5,000 paid for the horse by Ford, into an ar
tistic and well-designed bungalow.
“No author can write the Great American
Novel,” Ford was saying, “and ignore God!”
“You are incontrovertibly true in your rea
soning, Ford, and I am glad to hear such a
noble sentence fall from your lips, as you be
long by birth, at least, to the irreverent and
non-speculative class.”
“This is my Princeton self, the theological
phase of my nature, that is in the ascendent to
night, Brown, and I have coined a sentence
that the ‘System' may fire upon, if they
choose.”
“Well, ‘System-fire’ is too rapid, Gregg, to
be of vital value. Then the Great American
Novel is a psychological impossibility. How
ever, the near-great American novel may have
a slight chance to be born in this generation,
Ford, and it will be self-protective; that is, it
will evolve a critical strata, more powerful
than ‘System-criticism,’ and a praise-strata
that will defend its author, like the henchmen
of Burbank, from all cranks.”
“Most excellent, friend Brown! I reason
that the brain that is Titantic enough to pen
the near-great American novel will never pause
long enough to read any published accounts
about the matter, nor to examine a single let
ter concerning the book.”
“Exactly. Then a curious man. Gregg, will
never write it.”
“Os course not. It will be the work of a
pure scientist, perhaps, I should say, a genius,
who can balance ‘the cackle of his bourgh, the
murmur of the world’ and the sibylline echoes
of the universe."
“Will this scientist have to observe ‘the mur
mur of the world’?”
“No more than he oi.serves the sibylline
echoes of the universe. As the age is mechan
ic-mad, perhaps the less'he has to say about
steam-whistles, the nearer he will approach to
the near-great novel. Much as the idealist of
the classic Greek school is abused, Brown,
there is a subliminal note about his work, a
profound depth, which is like the voice of old
Ocean —resistless. Bald realism isn’t half as
fascinating as its votaries claim.”
“A defence of ‘Art for Art's sake,’ by the
master of the business game is, indeed, a rare
argument for me to hear.”
“Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” Ford
exclaimed.
“Ah, my friend, but greater still was the
town clerk who stopped the uproar! And they
cried out for the space.of two hours, in the city
of Ephesus, Brown, ‘Great is Diana of the
Ephesians!’ ”
“One of your ancestors, Ford, must surely
have been an Ephesian? 1 have heard you use
that term more times than one.”
“Perhaps, he was a relation of Demetrius the
silversmith, or. perhaps, I have heard a circle
of strong-lunged theologians who were fond
of Acts 19! Do you believe in a soul-body,
Brown ?”
“The sense of a soul-body lies in the sense
of personal identity, Ford, and even a man
negative to theology, or wicked, or callous to
morality, will be angry with you if you politely
in form him ‘that he doesn’t exist.’ ‘I am I’ is
the primus thought, as a cross between a black
berry and a raspberry is said to be the primus
berry. Carlyle informs us ‘that we are all
ghosts.’ We come from the Invisible, to march
back into the Invisible. And, we are all march
ing back into the Invisible, no matter how
much we rebel at the relentless process. Per
sonally, I have no hints in my life of ‘metem
psychosis.’ If I lived in Egypt with Pharaoh, I
don’t know it. If I visited there, with Pythago
ras, I am not aware of it.”
