July, 1939
259
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
Illustration by Ransom D. Marvin
sleep. He had allowed himself to become drift wood. How long had he been in this state of spirit ual coma from which he had been aroused tonight? Ever since — ever since Rita had made a mani kin of him! The real Gordon Harrington had been but a clothed statue, while a duped, pleasure- crazed Gordon had been chasing will-o’-the-wisps. But now he was alive again, fully awake. His jaw set with de
By PAUL HUTCHENS PART II
Palmist in a traveling carnival. Fonda Amundsen—"Madame Nevairre”—was not only dissatisfied with the emptiness and deception o f her profession, but also deeply regretful over losing the love o f Gordon Harrington, the former college friend in whose home town the carnival was stop ping for a night. She sat in her tent at the fair, considering with dread the break in the L ife Line o f her own palm, which she believed indicated a serious accident ahead o f her. She was startled to see Gordon approach- her booth, accompanied by Rita Martineau, who had won him aw ay from her. F o l lowing his recognition o f Fonda, Gordon allowed himself to be dragged by Rita to the dance pavilion. Suddenly he hesitated, filled with distaste for the life it represented. In irritation, Rita declared she was staying, whether he chose to remain or not. B UT what if he had been mistaken? What if the lonely-looking young wo man in the fortune teller’s booth were not Fonda Amundsen, the girl whom he had once loved enough—almost enough—to ask her to marry him? Gordon Harrington suddenly felt it impossible to retrace his steps toward the palmist’s tent. Shortly, as he continued his retreat from the dance hall where Rita had petulantly dismissed him, he found himself directly in front of his father’s store. “Don’t expect me to be a display-window manikin!’’ Rita’s words came back to him with a rush. Rita never would be a silent statue, never a mere onlooker at life. Always, she would be in the center of things, always in the gay whirl—gay whirlpool! A nausea seized him. He faced a truth he had not fully realized before. He, too, had been caught in the downward pull of that awful mael strom! Suddenly he knew what he must do first—what he must do before he saw Fonda, if indeed he ever did see her again. He searched in his pocket for the key to the store, turned the bolt, went inside, closed and locked the door after him. He stood in the semi-darkness, looking about. Yonder at the farther end of the store, a lone electric bulb revealed the cash register and the big steel safe. Beyond that was the mezzanine floor and the stairway lead ing up to the stock room. He was not thinking of what he saw. He was telling himself that a man couldn’t always be a woman’s fool. His eyes were opened now. It was as if he had awakened from a long
termination. He climbed the stairs to the stock room, felt his way down narrow aisles, and stopped at a small window overlooking Douglas Street and the open- air dance pavilion. The salacious throb, throb, of syncopated music was barely distinguishable above the roar and clatter, the shouts and screams and tin-pan music of the Midway. Directly across from him w eis the First National Bank, and above, gay stars twinkled in the blue of the mid night sky. The Big Dipper had swung far around. No matter how far it swung in its orbit, Alpha and Beta, two of its stars, were always in line, pointing nearly to the North Star, to Polaris. And the North Star never changed its position! Suddenly he saw it all: Christ was the Changeless One. He, Gordon Harrington, had once acknowledged himself a helpless sinner, needing a Saviour, and had received Christ as the Saviour he must have. But he had moved “out of line.’’ His life no longer pointed in the right direction. A prayer escaped his lips: “O my God, let me never again change my position—my position in relation to Christ. Let me never again swing out of orbit, but always keep heart and life in line with the Lord Jesus Christ.” His heart overflowed. He dropped to his knees in the shadows, and confessing his sins, w eis restored to fellowship with the God- whom he had once known and loved fervently. As he rose, his eyes and ears came back to the orgy of pleasure in the street below. Let him not judge as to how much or how little of the town’s celebration was innoc uous, but for himself he knew it did not satisfy. To see it and be in it only made him more hungry for reality, for life that w eis life indeed. He opened the window for a breath of fresh air and closed it again with a bang
as the roar of the carnival crashed sacri legiously into the sanctity of his thoughts. He groped his way back to the stairs and a few minutes later was in the street. He walked with firm step past the whirling dazzle of the merry-go-round, dodging his way hurriedly along the Midway toward Madame Nevairre’s tent. His first task would be to free Fonda from this sordid life. No doubt she was following this pc- cupation, not so much because of choice but because it was a way to make a living in a world where jobs for college graduates were anything but plentiful. Surely Fonda did not believe in Palmistry as an accurate science. Certainly not as a religion. Only superstitious people were duped by it as such. He pushed open the curtains at her tent entrance and looked in. She was alone. He drew in his breath sharply, staggered by her beauty and by the memories of their past together, awed by the atmosphere. Madame Nevairre indicated a chair across the table from her, smiled up at him with merely professional eyes. "Be seated, please.” She gestured with a soft white hand, on whose wrists were a half dozen varicolored bracelets. "Fonda!” he exclaimed. She raised a monitory finger to her lips, shook her head mysteriously and again in dicated the chair. He shuffled awkwardly into it. He didn’t believe in Chiromancy! As a Christian, he had other and better ways of dealing with the future, and his purpose here tonight had nothing to do with fortune telling. His task was not going to be an easy one. “Your right hand, please." He extended it, palm up. She was a clever actress, he thought. But her fingers were trembling, her breath coming in quick little gasps.
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