THE HAPPY-DAY
as a few dismissing sentences in a paragraph. There were plenty of people to work with and play with, but almost no one to think with, and your hard-wrought book knowledge faded to nothing ness compared to the three paramount convictions of your youthful experience, namely, that neither coffee nor ocean nor Life tasted as good as it smelled.
And then when you were almost twenty-one you met "Clarice"!
It was a Christmas supper party in a cafe. Some one looked up suddenly and called the name "Clarice! Clarice!" and when your startled eyes shot to the mark and saw her there in her easy, dashing, gorgeous beauty, something in your brain curdled, and all the lonesomeness, all the mystery, all the elusiveness of Life pounded suddenly in your heart like a captured Will-o'-the-Wisp. "Clarice?" Here, then, was the end of your journey? The eternal kindness? The flash of a white wing across your stormy sea? "Clarice!" And you looked across unbidden into her eyes and smiled at her a gaspy, astonished smile that brought the strangest light into her face.
Oh, but Clarice was very beautiful! Never had you seen such a type. Her hair was black and solemn as crape. Her eyes were bright and noisy as jet. Her heart was barren as a blot of ink. And
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