Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

610 ent men behave differently. Their feelings may have great resemblance, but their re- flexes differ. As capable of feelings as strong as the next man of average, humdrum, go-easy temperament, Ernest Kennedy was—slow. Not in perception, so much as in proof- seeking. | He had the not uncommon male habit of mulling over a self-evident truth and wasting time on checking up on his defi- nite conclusion. He would know for a positive fact that he had so much money in his pocket; yet he would count it over and over again, not for the purpose of see- ing if he had. made a mistake or lost any, but out of sheer pleasure of checking. He loved to make little. ticks against the items on his mental tablet of memoranda. Kennedy clerked in an office in the same building as Julie. They had lunched to- gether a few times. He had taken her to movie shows, evening walks and one or two Sunday jaunts. There had been no avowal of love from him; but he had plodded slowly to a be- lief in himself as Julie’s “ steady.” This ‘‘ steady ” business is a curious cross between an engagement and a non-engage- ment. It is a blind kind of understanding that enables either one of the “ going-to- gether ’”’ parties to break off without any tangible show of lack of loyalty. It is a test of mental suitability, and in some cases works all right. In others the trial is all one side and the fooling on the other. ' One is in earnest and the other is only pre- tending. ; Such had been the case with Ernest Ken- nedy and Julie, and had she been sincere, the affair might have developed to a regu- lar, solitaire affianceship and a real, life partnership. Not very romantic maybe, but real. In most cases these tentative heart skir- mishes and amorous tryouts turn out satis- factorily, and whether the wooing pair de- termine to wed or part there is’ no great damage done. When love comes, it is not one of those spontaneous conflagrations, but is usually of a grade of mutual liking found- ed on a tolerable work-a-day basis. We rave over the spectacular episodes ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. of the figurines in remote history. The coo- ing but not always pure and thoroughbred doves of the poets are perched in a jeweled and gilded niche in our regard; yet, al- though we may smile with indulgence tinged with a nasty streak of self-conscious super- jority, it is quite probable that John and Mary of the nest habit, so commonplace, y know, so ordinary and prosaic, have a steadfast hold on the core of things. Their _ galleon of adventure is mayhap an excur- sion steamer from a city pier to some holi- day resort on the coast. The palace of their desire is a pay-as-you-must apartment that will rentally squeeze into the limits of John’s salary.- Their pearl-set and gold- en throne in Arcadia is a park bench; damp, splintery, scratched and indented with al- phabetic oddities and wobbly symbols skew- ered with darts. So crude, so disfiguring to a primly designed and chasté park bench. On smooth trunks, toe, we see these quaint pocket-knife intaglios in evidence of cupid’s thrall, and sometimes they shame a noble tree; but, there are others who carve their names on the records of Corespondents and divorcees. These are mostly the gaudy- plomaged: jazz-birds of cheap passions who make love a squeaky toy. John and Mary dream of practical things such as real Wil- ton carpets, a kitchen cabinet and roast chicken ¢ dewx on Sundays, and they come pretty near to grasping perfect, undisturbed happiness. Those others, the snobs of bubble-born al- Jurement, they dream of pampered joys, _grab all they can and—not caring who suf- fers so long as they get clear of the mess with a whole skin, they go—bust. In the name of love is much abomination hatched. With love can the fallen rise, and the great be humble. ‘On Saturday evening, it had been Ken- nedy’s intention to meet Julie and tell her of a good many ideas he had been stewing over and allowing to simmer in his mind. The Artie episode had caught him unawares, and the comfortable little nest of thoughts he had prepared were thrown topsyturvy. Dumfounded, he went home and from a state of surprised indignation passed to a stage of desire to know more. CONMUC NOOO Their lamp burns steadily.. S CO