Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUNGLE LOVE. ebb, the ether is free to the eager roaming discharge from the broodings of the plot- ting murderer and the scheming. destroyers of peace and love and happiness. In the citadels of the kind and the pure, the wan- dering: evil thoughts of others cannot find entry. They peep, throng around; but soon disperse. The obvious circumstance that had torn loose Julie’s frail hold on her mentality was the loss of her money. To her it was a great blow, and considered comparatively, it was. The fourteen dollars was all she had. But no material loss is irreparable. The man who loses a fortune does not necessarily. lose his happiness. The woman whose youth is fading still has the beauty of her character to mature, her girl-heart to preserve from all corroding influences due to thinking herself old. The numbered years are numerically misleading. There are boys of sixty plus, and eld women of seventeen minus: who have deliberately thrown away their youth. Take your choice, your age is not told by-your birth- certificate, nor is it what you think you are; it is what you will your mind to be. We go beyond our Julie here. She had no will to speak of, nu perception of her- self as a self-governing being. Had she been told that she could not do as she liked regardless of consequences, and get away i a it, she would certainly have tilted her n and retorted that after office hours she was her own mistress. A charming but wofully misleading belief, and leading to the interpretation of individual free will as an agency freeing one from all restric- tions. The act of doing the thing one has to do is no test or evidence of will power. The rules of business necessitated Julie get- ting to the office at a certain hour and doing a required amount of work -before she left in the evening. If she did not fulfil these conditions, she knew she would be fired. After office hours her choice of occupa- tion was open, and provided she did what was comfortable with her idea of the fit- ting, she might have no great sense of elation; but on the other hand, she could not lay herself open to regretful aftermaths. Her meeting with Artie and her acceptance of his company had been one of those 607 things which she bnew was not exactly nice. She had taken a chance, and now, although she did not connect ‘Artie with the loss of her money, she not illogically agreed that if she had not gone to the Mog she would not now be penniless. Also, there was her kitten. If she had come Straight back to her room, and found it missing, she would at least have had the satisfaction of facing her landlady and de- manding an explanation. Now, the rent was due, she had no money to pay it, she knew she had done wrong jn being out so late and her head was aching. The excite- ment of unaccustomed stimulation had died down and left her physically flat. She was in a condition of non-resistance to all ills, receptive to germs eager to take lodg- ing in her blood and mind. Worry is the fertilizer of disease. At last came the dawn; slowly the chill air turned warmer, the sunlight grew strong- er, and the shades, fancies and shadow realities of the night receded. It was Sun- day morning. The first thing Julie did was to get out of bed-and look at herself in the mirror, The glass of these reflectors of ourselves varies in its capacity for truthful duplica- tion. Some are of faintly pinkish tint, others tend to an indistinguishable green. In the former we look healthier, rosier than we are; in the latter, paler and sallower than is the real color of our skin. Then, too, if we feel well we look, to ourselves, better than we are. If we feel down in the dumps, blue and miserable, the rosiest of mirrors holds a wan-looking stranger. — The drawn face that Julie saw did not please or help her. Her hair was bedrag- gled, her cheeks seemed to be thinner and her skin looked actually dirty. Her eye- lids were carmine-pink rimmed, the long, dark lashes were stuck together and the blue of her irises seemed faded to a streaky, pale gray.. The sight of her wobegone features roused her. She was appalled; but the effect brought about was the wakening of her combativeness. That pretty face of hers was too good, too valued a possession to be allowed to continue in that horrible state. She splashed _ some water into the : CONMUC NOOK CO