Lifted Masks

ring but disapproving eye. "No one that comes along this way'll have

for what he called a song. It was only a little out-of-the-way store which subsisted chiefly on the framing of pictures. The old man looked around at his views of t

ted from his realm of petty tradesman to that of patron of art. There was a hidden dignity

re is just that one difference of dealing with them differently. "It ain't what you see, so much as what you can guess is there," was the thought it brought to the old man who was dusting it. "Now this frame ain't three feet long, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit

ng men and women, some fruit and flowers and fish which he had left thinking they might "set it off." It was evident that the new picture did not need to be "set off." "And anyway," he told himself, in vindication of entrusting all hi

kers coming from the business district not far away over to the boarding-house region, a little to the west. He watched them as they came by in twos and threes and fours: noisy people and worn-out people, people hi

of the rest of them, and yet she looked different-like the picture and the chromo. She turned an indifferent glance toward the window, and then suddenly she stood there very still, and

the street as one rubbing one's eyes to make sure of a thing, and then it all gave way to a joy which lighted her pale little face like-"Well, like nothing I ever saw before," was all the old man could say of it. "Why, she'd never know if the whole fire department was to run right up here on the sidewalk," he gloated. Just then she drew herself up for a long breath. "See?" he chuckled, delightedly. "She knows it has a smell!" She looked toward the door, but shook her head. "Knows she can't pay the price," he in

e way she looked when she finally turned away that it never occu

"as if it makes any difference whether she comes or not-when she can't buy it, anyhow. She's just as big a fool as I am-liking it when she can't have it, only I'm the biggest fool of all-caring whether she likes it or not." But just then t

ht into the heart of it-"it's like someone that's been wandering round in a desert country all of a sudden coming on a spring. She's thirsty-she's drinking it in-she can't get enough of it. It's-it's t

scale to one hundred pounds," he decided. "Looks like a good wind could blow her away.

e's been there, and she wants to go back. This kind of takes her back f

in the same eager way, an eagerness close to the feverish. But the tenseness would always relax as she saw the picture. "She never looks quite so wilted down when she go

minutes of six he took it out of the window. "Seems kind of mean," he

he sidewalk. Everything about her seemed to give way-as if something from which she had been drawing had been taken from her. The luminousness gone from her face, there were cruel revelations. "Blast my soul!" the old man muttered angrily, not far from tearfully. Sh

pared with the brute who would snatch the cup of water from the dying-such were the verdicts he pronounced. He thought perhaps she would come back, and stayed there until almost seven, waiting for her, though pretending it was necessary that he take down and then put up again the front curtains. All the next day he was restless and irri

do this that he was jubilant when he finally saw her coming along on the other side-coming purposelessly, shorn of that eagerness which had always been able, for the moment, to vanquish the tiredness. But

tated again and this time started across the street. "Tha

d-and she saw the picture. First her body seemed to stiffen, and then something-he couldn't make out whethe

fectionately to her retreating fo

oked at her suspiciously. Then he frowned at her, as he stood there, fumbling. Her picture! What would she think? What would she do? Then a crafty smile stole over his

there holding the picture up before he

at the picture was better than the young man had known. "Wil

was the matter. The paper would not go on right. Three times he took it off, and each time he could not help looking down at the picture of the pines. And each time the forest seemed to open a little farther; each time it seemed bigger-bigger even than forty dollars; it seemed as if it knew things-things more important than even coal and rent. And then the strangest thing of all happened: the forest faded away into its own

back to the fro

, brusquely, "that this pict

n astonishment. "I do no

" he fairly shouted, "except th

im. "I will give you fifty dollars

nd offer me five hundred dollars, and I'm here to tel

plied the lady, and

Lake Michigan he was putting into a frame, "it's hers-it's hern-and anybo

hing to tell her, for surely she knew it anyway. He worried a good deal about her cough, which seemed to be getting worse, and he had it all figured out that when cold weather came he would have her come in where it was w

e mystified and disappointed him had he known that she had never seen a pine forest or a mountain in her life. Indeed there was

developed the facts that she did typewriting for a land company, that she did not seem to have any people, and lived at a big boarding-house. At the boarding-house they would have told you that she was a n

e great timber lands, the valleys and hills, towering mountain peaks and rushing rivers. She typewrote "literature" telling how there was a chance for every man out there, how the big, exhaustless land was eager to yield of its

p. The street-cars did not ring their gongs so loud Out There, the newsboys had pleasant voices, and there were no elevated trains. It was a pure, high land which knew no smoke nor dirt, a land where great silences drew one to the heart of peace, where the people in the next room did not come in and bang things around late at night. Out There was a wide

and tumbling with it down cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided it to the desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and the grateful desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could make it more like a story than any story in any book. And she could always breathe better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There was something liberating-expandin

chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle, a city builded upon many hills-how wonderful that a city should be builded upon hills!-in Chicago there was nothing that could possibly be thought of as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and let the great mountain peak grow in the distance, as one could see it from Portland-

f the Columbia-saw, and felt not; she sat before her typewriter in a close, noisy room and heard the cooling rush of waters and got the freeing message of the pines. In some rare moments when she rose from the things about her to the things of which she dreamed she possessed the whole great land, and as the sultry days sapped of her meagre strength, and the be

office, of course-some pictures trying to tell of that very kind of a place. But those were just pictures; this proved it, told what it meant. It told that she had been right, and there was joy

y she would just sink down in the deep, cool shadows of the pines, beside the little river wh

dered what they would think if they knew. Often she would find someone in

queerly. As she came in and sat down near his desk he swung his chair around an

to be there. She said she hated to speak of it, but could not stand it any longer. That had been the week before, and ever since he had

in the office, and for a time would have less desk room. If he sent her machine to her home, would s

day long. And she had grown fond of the office, with its "literature" and pictures and maps and the men who had just come from Out There coming in every onc

ose to go. "Are you alone in th

I-oh

ou like," he asked recklessly, "to ha

had left her face. Her deep eyes had grown almost wil

ldn't wa

a whisper-"it woul

ld like

. He wondered why he had never seen before how different lo

ter out there. I'll see if I can fix up the transportation, and get so

Something in the smile made him say, abruptly: "That's al

her chair-an indulgence less luxurious than it sounds, as the chair only reached the middle of her back-and looked out at the high brick wall and saw a snow-clad range of hills. But she was tired; this tremendous idea was too much for her; the very wonder of it was exhausting. She lay down on her bed-radiant, but languid. Soon she heard a rush of waters. At first it was only someone filling the bath-tub,

e stress of dreams changing to hopes caused a great languor to come over her. And her chair was not right for her typewriter, and the smoke came in al

weak with excitement as she stepped into the elevator. Would Mr. Osborn

y message for her, but the telephone rang then and the man to whom she was talking turned away. Someone was sitting at her old desk, and they did not seem to

ed, an impulse to reach out her hand and tell someone that something must be done right

ll really so. In the same old way, her step quickened. It would show her again that it was all just as she had thought it was, and if that

ble to reach. Try as she would, she could not get into it, as she used to. It was only a picture; a beaut

such a queer looking old man-and she knew she would cry if anything cross was said to her. That he had watched for her each night, that he had tried and tried to think of a way of finding her, that he would have been mor

ready tired her so that she sat a long time resting, looking out at the high brick wall beyond which there was nothing at all. She was cou

ll. The boy had said that Mr. Osborne was away and would be gone two weeks

lakes. She tried to go out to them in the same old way-but she could not get beyond the high brick wall. She was shut in. She tried to draw them to her, but they could n

t up and started for the picture. It was a long, long way to go, and dreadful things were in between-people who would bump against her, hot, uneven streets, horses that mi

nd, she did go; holding to the window casings for the last few steps-each step a terrible chasm which she was never sure she was going to be able to cross-she was there at last. And in the window

ts would call the breeze from an electric fan was in truth the gracious breath of the pines. And when the nurse said "She's going," she was indeed going, but to a land of great spaces and benign breezes, a land of deep shadows and rushing waters. For a most wondrous thing had happened. She had called to the mountain, and the mountain had heard her voice; and because it was so mighty and so everlasting it drew her to itself, across high bri