Unwind my riddle.
Cruel as hawks the hours fly;
Wounded men seldom come home to die;
The hard waves see an arm flung high;
Scorn hits strong because of a lie;
Yet there exists a mystic tie.
Unwind my riddle.
She was out in the garden. Her mother came to her rapidly. "Margharita!
Margharita, Mister Smith is here! Come!" Her mother was fat and
commercially excited. Mister Smith was a matter of some importance to
all Tampa people, and since he was really in love with Margharita he
was distinctly of more importance to this particular household.
Palm trees tossed their sprays over the fence toward the rutted sand of
the street. A little foolish fish-pond in the centre of the garden
emitted a sound of red-fins flipping, flipping. "No, mamma," said the
girl, "let Mr. Smith wait. I like the garden in the moonlight."
Her mother threw herself into that state of virtuous astonishment which
is the weapon of her kind. "Margharita!"
The girl evidently considered herself to be a privileged belle, for she
answered quite carelessly, "Oh, let him wait."
The mother threw abroad her arms with a semblance of great high-minded
suffering and withdrew. Margharita walked alone in the moonlit garden.
Also an electric light threw its shivering gleam over part of her
parade.
There was peace for a time. Then suddenly through the faint brown
palings was struck an envelope white and square. Margharita approached
this envelope with an indifferent stride. She hummed a silly air, she
bore herself casually, but there was something that made her grasp it
hard, a peculiar muscular exhibition, not discernible to indifferent
eyes. She did not clutch it, but she took it--simply took it in a way
that meant everything, and, to measure it by vision, it was a picture
of the most complete disregard.
She stood straight for a moment; then she drew from her bosom a
photograph and thrust it through the palings. She walked rapidly into
the house.