The Visioning | Page 2

the
disagreeable or distressing things of life could not invade. Most of the
women were away, which was the real godsend, for the dreariness and
desolation of pleasure would be eliminated. A quiet post was charming
until it tried to be gay--so mused Miss Katherine Wayneworth Jones.
And of various other things, mused she. Her brother, Captain
Wayneworth Jones, was divorced from his wife and wedded to
something he was hoping would in turn be wedded to a rifle; all the
scientific cells of the family having been used for Wayne's brain, it was
hard for Katie to get the nature of the attachment, but she trusted the
ordnance department would in time solemnly legalize the

affair--Wayne giving in marriage--destruction profiting happily by the
union. Meanwhile Wayne was so consecrated to the work of making
warfare more deadly that he scarcely knew his sister had arrived. But
on the morrow, or at least the day after, would come young
Wayneworth, called Worth, save when his Aunt Kate called him
Wayne the Worthy. Wayne the Worthy was also engaged in perfecting
a death-dealing instrument, the same being the interrogation point.
Doubtless he would open fire on Aunt Kate with--Why didn't his
mother and father live in the same place any more, and--Why did he
have to live half the time with mama if he'd rather stay all the time with
father? Poor Worth, he had only spent six years in a world of law and
order, and had yet to learn about courts and incompatibilities and
annoying things like that. It did not seem fair that the hardest part of the
whole thing should fall to poor little Wayne the Worthy. He couldn't
help it, certainly.
But how Worthie would love those collie pups! They would evolve all
sorts of games to play with them. Picturing herself romping with the
boy and dogs, prowling about on the river in Wayne's new launch,
lounging under those great oak trees reading good lazying books, doing
everything because she wanted to and nothing because she had to,
flirting just enough with Captain Prescott to keep a sense of the reality
of life, she lay there gloating over the happy prospect.
And then in that most irresponsible and unsuspecting of moments
something whizzed into her consciousness like a bullet--something shot
by her vision pierced the lazy, hazy, carelessly woven web of
imagery--bullet-swift, bullet-true, bullet-terrible--striking the center
clean and strong. The suddenness and completeness with which she sat
up almost sent her from her place. For from the very instant that her eye
rested upon the figure of the girl in pink organdie dress and big hat she
knew something was wrong.
And when, within a few feet of the river the girl stopped running,
shrank back, covered her face with her hands, then staggered on, she
knew that that girl was going to the river to kill herself.
There was one frozen instant of powerlessness. Then--what to do? Call

to her? She would only hurry on. Run after her? She could not get there.
It was intuition--instinct--took the short cut a benumbed reason could
not make; rolling headlong down the bunker, twisting her neck and
mercilessly bumping her elbow, Katherine Wayneworth Jones emitted
a shriek to raise the very dead themselves. And then three times a quick,
wild "Help--Help--Help!" and a less audible prayer that no one else was
near.
It reached; the girl stopped, turned, saw the rumpled, lifeless-looking
heap of blue linen, turned back toward the river, then once more to the
motionless Miss Jones, lying face downward in the sand. And then the
girl who thought life not worth living, delaying her own preference,
with rather reluctant feet--feet clad in pink satin slippers--turned back
to the girl who wanted to live badly enough to call for help.
Through one-half of one eye Katie could see her; she was thinking that
there was something fine about a girl who wanted to kill herself putting
it off long enough to turn back and help some one who wanted to live.
Miss Jones raised her head just a trifle, showed her face long enough to
roll her eyes in a grewsome way she had learned at school, and with a
"Help me!" buried her face in the sand and lay there quivering.
The girl knelt down. "You sick?" she asked, and Katie had the fancy of
her voice sounding as though she had not expected to use it any more.
"So ill!" panted Kate, rolling over on her back and holding her heart.
"Here! My heart!"
The girl looked around uncertainly. It must be a jar, Katie conceded,
being called back to life, expected to fight for the very thing one was
running away from. Her rescuer was evidently considering going to the
river for water--saving water