The Beauty and the Bolshevist

								

new illustrated edition of Hans Andersen’s Tales, treating them as if
they were modern stories, commenting on them from the point of view of
morals and probability—making fun of people who couldn’t give
themselves up to the charm of a story unless it tallied with their own
horrid little experiences of life. She told it, she said, very badly,
but perhaps he could get the idea.
He got it perfectly. “Good,” he said. “I’ll give you a job. I’m a
newspaper editor.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re not Mr. Munsey, are you, or Mr. Reid, or
Mr. Ochs?”
Her knowledge of newspaper owners seemed to come to a sudden end.
“No,” he answered, smiling, “nor even Mr. Hearst. I did not say I owned
a newspaper. I edit it. I need some one just like you for my book page,
only you’d have to come to New York and work hard, and there wouldn’t
be very much salary. Can you work?”
“Anyone can.”
“Well, will you?”
“Indeed I will.” (It was a vow.) “And now I must go. I have to drive
myself home in an open car, and the tourists do stare at one so—in
fancy dress.”
“Yes, but when am I to see you again? I leave Newport to-night.”
“Telephone me—2079—and we’ll arrange to do something this afternoon.”
“And whom shall I ask for?”
“Telephone at two-fifteen to the minute, and I’ll answer the telephone
myself.”
She evidently rather enjoyed the mystery of their not knowing each
other’s names. But a black idea occurred to Ben. She had slid off the
raft and swum a few strokes before he shouted to her:
“Look here. Your name isn’t Eugenia, is it?”
She waved her hand. “No, I’m Crystal,” she called back.
“Good-by, Crystal.”
This time she did not wave, but, swimming on her side with long, easy
strokes, she gave him a sweet, reassuring look.
After she had gone he lay down on the raft with his face buried in his
arms. A few moments before he had thought he could never see enough of
the sunrise and the sea, but now he wanted to shut it out in favor of a
much finer spectacle within him. So this was love. Strange that no one
had ever been able to prepare you for it. Strange that poets had never
been able to give you a hint of its stupendous inevitability. He
wondered if all miracles were like that—so simple—so—
Suddenly he heard her voice near him. He lifted his head from his arms.
She was there in the water below him, clinging to the raft with one
hand.
“I just came back to tell you something,” she said. “I thought you
ought to know it before things went any farther.”
He thought, “Good God! she’s in love with some one else!” and the
horror of the idea made him look at her severely.
“I’m not perhaps just as I seem—I mean my views are rather liberal. In
fact”—she brought it out with an effort—“I’m almost a socialist.”
The relief was so great that Ben couldn’t speak. He bent his head and