Evening Star Newspaper, May 10, 1925, Page 75

THANKS TO LUCIA By Henry C. Rowland Lucia’s Father, Rearing Her On a Desert Island, Had Tried to Teach Her What To Do and Say If They Ever Returned to Civilization. NE really hasn't the right to be surprised at anything nowadays, especially as re- regards the conduct of young girls. So I was en- tirely to blame for being startled when there walked into the smoking room of the hotel, where I was Sit- ting alone, a young and very pretty #irl, who threw me a careless glance, then began, apparently, to undress. Taken thus off my guard, I stared at her, then looked rv.1d for the camera man, for this was down in the moving picture country. But there was no camera man. I was about to retire when the girl ex- tracted a pin which had been stick- ing into some part of her, reassem- bled again, then remarked: “Clothes are a great bother, aren’t v. 1 don't see why people want ar so many of them.” She shook her head and tumbled down a bale of insecurely fastened ruddy hair, “Bother!” said she, impatiently, It's just the same with your hair. So many silly little pins and ‘things! 1 don’t know how to make. it stay. Do you?” “I never tried,” I answered, “so the chances are I should make a mess of it. If you go into the ladies’ dressing room the maid might fix it for you.” She ignored the advice and fas- tened me with a pair of large eves th to which were of a pale but very soft | ™ shade of gray, doubly fringed with long black lashes. I saw immediately from their expression that I had to do_with some sort of a primitive. “You look very ni said she. “Do you know m “Than you,” I answered. “What is name?” We have just got from a long way off. "I never saw any people before. Father says 1 must not speak to strangers, but was hardly listening. Elliot liot Fiske. The name was entirely familiar. Some time or other ad known one Elliot Fiske, and the vague association impressed me as having been a pleasant one. The girl interrupted my effort at recol- lection, “What is your name?” she asked. “Mine is Lucia.” “And mine Arthur Brown,” I answered, at which she clapped her hands. Then suddenly I remembered Elliot Fiske as one of the American art students at Julian's Paint School, when I had studied there nearly 25 Vvears ago, and one of the wildest of that rollicking crowd. It seemed to me also that I had heard somewhere of his having been lost at sea. “‘Of course,” I said, and as I spoke Fiske himself came in. I doubt if I should have known him. He did not look to have aged so much, though his hair and Van Dyck had whitened, but his handsome face was tanned and weather-roughened, as if from many years of exposure, and had a strong, virile intensity of expression utterly lacking in the Elliot Fiske whom I remembered. His body, too, gave a suggestion of splendid mus- cular strength and nervous tonicity. “Here you are again!” he snapped to Lucia. “How many times must I tell you to keep out of the smoking room and not to bother strangers?” Hello, ~Tiske,” I interrupted. “Where have you been all these vear: JE recosnized me at once. Then some woman acquaintance look- ed in and called to Lucia, who went out with a rush. Fiske dropped into chair with a_sigh. Now what the deuce am I to-do with a voung savage like that?” he demanded. ‘“Just think of it, Brown: until a week ago she'd never seen a living person but her mother and old Andre and myself.” “Where have you been?” I asked. “In Magellan Land. Old uncle Salt- onstall stuck me on one of his wind- jammers for a voyage round the Horn to cure me of the liquor habit.” “Did yeu get cured?” “You bet! I was cured before we crossed the line, but it wasn't the dry- ness of the ship that did it. The skipper was a secret drinker, and he was taking out the niece of a French wine-grower in California. Her name was Renee Duffroy, and she was a beauty. 1 fell in love with her, of course. “Oh, it was a beastly cruise, and Kkept getting worse the nearer we got “to the Horn. Down there off old Cape Stiff the mate was swept overboard one night, and the second mate fell from aloft and smashed himself to pleces, and just then the old man blew up in a raging attack of dt.'s and saw sea serpents and things tearing over the waves and clashing their jaws. The crew got at the liquor, and, with all hands drunk, we got caught aback and dismasted. Before this .we'd been swept repeatedly, and lost ‘all of our boats and most of the hands. Then the weather cleared, and we found ourselves wallowing in the backwash from the foot of tower- ing cliffs, and finaily slewed into a bight and fetched up in basin cn three big pronss “How many of you were there? “Six of us. Renee and the skipper and Andre, the cook, two of the hands and myself. It was a terrific sort of place—huge, heaped-up, jagged clif: full of caver§} and grottoes, and ther inland there were high plateaus and deep gorges and valleys with boil- ing springs and geysers and things. The sea roared against it, and the wind roared over it, and part was frozen and part steaming, and there were seals and myriads of birds and a good many wild goats. It was an island, T think, though in 20 years' time I never got all the way across it to see. In the basin where the ship fetched up there were places where the water boiled up hot and fresh in big, flat_eddles, and in some of the little valleys the vegetation was trop- ical. You can’t imagine such a mixed- up place, and it had a sort of fan- tastic beauty of the Turneresque school. A few miles away a mini- ature volcano got semi-active once in a while and turned the atmosphere a ruddy saffron. It was an awful place for thunderstorms, too.” “And you've just come from there?” * % ¥ % “Yes. After about 18 months of it, | without ever sighting so much as smoke, we built a pinnace, and the skipper and two hands cleared out, but they must have been lost. Be- fore the skipper left he married Renee and me, and about a year later, Lucia was born. Andre preferred to stay with us. “Taking it full and by, we weren't so0 badly off. We had everything a big hip carrles to start with, and the seeds we planted in the warm, fertile spots grew amazingly. Then there were the goats and seals and all sorts of sea food. Fact is, when we began to get used to it a little Renee and 1 were perfectly happy.” s soon as we gave up the idea of rescue and began to make ourselves at home for the rest of our lives 1 started in to paint.” 7 “Using the ship’s paint when your colors gave out?” T asked. ‘Not a bit of }t. There were sorge wonderful pigments in that volcanic . formation, and I ground them up and ixed them with various tempora "yntil X got what I wanted. Do you the sails and used the cabin panels. and I had some wonderful things, if I do say it myself. Then, about three years ago Renee was killed.” His face twiched. “She was struck by light- uing in one of those hideous storms. * K K % “WELL. it was unbearable without Renee, so we decided to try to get away.. Andre Wwas getting old, and any' day some accident might have happened to me and left Lucia there ‘alone. It took the three of us two years to build our boat, and she was nearly finished when there came an earthquake which killed Andre and destroyed .all of my palntings but two which I had stuck up in our cav- ern. So Lucia and I put to sea, and here we are. “Good heavens here did you get ‘'We were picked up by a steamer off the entrance to the straits of Ma- gellan and taken to San Francisco. I landed there ‘after 20 years of exile with about $500 and a grown-up daugh- ter whose knowldige of this world is purely . theoretical.. But let me tell you she is very far from being the Young savage you might think. Her mother . was convent-educated. and gave her lessons in everything which she thought she ought to know, while she has learned a good deal that she may some day have to know from I exclatmed. “I don’t think you need worry about Lucla, “What is more im- portant is how you are going to pro- vide for her with what is left of your $500. Have vou no other resources?"” He shook his head. “None whatever—barring, of course, my painting. Renee had*no dot, and I learn that Uncle Saltonstall took it for granted that I must be drowned, left his fortune with no provision for my turning up. So I'm going to see if I can’t get a job with these ‘movie’ peo- ple for the time being.” Nonsense!” I said. “You come to my house and stay as long as you like. I've done pretty well since we last met, and just now I'm at work on a big order to paint the mural decora- tions in the palace of a millionaire." Fiske protested a little, but finally gave in; so, as soon as Lucia came back I took them to my place. Lucia seemed entirely at her ease. I asked her presently what she found most curious about her new surroundings. “Men,” she answered. “They are not at all what I thought they would be like. All that I have talked to were very nice, but, of course, some are nicer than others. Father must be quite wrong about them. - Money is very interesting, too. It seems.to me that if one wants to be happy here, the first thing to do is to-make friends with some man who has plenty of money “Why-not a woman?” 1 asked. “I think -a woman would probably want it for herself,” said she. “The men seem to be much more obliging. I hope that you have plenty of money, Mr. Brown.” “Fortunately, I have as much as we are apt to need,” I answered. ‘“What would you like to have first?” She reflected for a moment while I watched in amused curiosity. If I had been 20 years younger, Lucia’s-profile would have aroused a much warmer emotion.. “I think I should like to have a goat,” said she. “I had to leave my goat, and I have missed it a great deal. Later on, I should like to have a husband who was good looking, and has plenty of mone: “Those are both very - reasonable things to want, and I don’t think there should be any great difficulty about getting them,” T answered. “I shall buy you a kid this very afternoon. But you had better look around a little before you choose a husband, as you might pick the wrong one, and they are sometimes difficult to get rid of.” e * ok X % THE people whose palatial house I had just begun to decorate had suffered a grievous blow. Their only child, a manly chap of 26, had been sent back from service in France stone- blind. The Smiths (as I shall call- them) were naturally in deep distress, not only for the affliction itself, but for fear of its effect upon the general health and mental tone of their son. Wade bore up under his calamity with an outward air of gruff, philosophic nobody. Now that he was strigken, it seemed to irritate him when anybody but the immediate family tried to en- { | Brown, I really learned to paint ia that Placs. 1 cut my canvases resignation, which, however, deceived |sai tertain him—a frequent condition with the recently blinded, I am told. .. In my case, however, he made a flattering exception and used to come often to the studio where I was making my preliminary sketches and listen silently and without comment to my lengthy yarns of the old days when 1 had gone adventuring' with those hardened seascamps, Dr. Bowles and Jordan Knapp. But it was evi- dent enough that he was gradually giving way under the bravely borne strain. The day after the arrival at my house of Elliot and Lucia I was at work in the studio when Wade was brought in by his chauffeur. “Hope you don't mind this early visit, Mr. Brown,” he said, “I have to get up at the peep o' dawn to escape Suzanne.” Not ng as yet intimate with the family, be. “Suzanne s my’ ante-bellum fi- ancee,”” he answered. ‘“After getting my lamps doused, I tried to break it off, but she is too noble. She has de- termined to sacrifice. her life to my happiness——" “Why don’t you be even nobler and refuse to accept the sacrifice?” I asked. “I've tried, but she beats me to it. You eee, I asked her to miarry me when I got my commission and im- mediately became very much engaged, so that now there seems no way out of it with honor. At that time I was very keen to marry her, but now I seem to have lost my taste for it, just as I have for tobacco and my four meals a day. Suzanne's asset is an over-allowance of beauty, but what's the good of that when you can't see it? Besides, she is very fond of ad- miration and inclined to be flirtatious, and 1-don't Jike the idea of a gay and heautiful young wife that I can't keep my eye on. I'd be imagining all sorts of things.” “If you feel that way about it,” said i, u'd be no end of a chump to marry her. Tell her that you're not going to marry her, and make an end of it.” “Well,” said Wade, “it isn't so easy as it sounds. -She turned down two good offers to get engaged to me. Then she's no longer in the first flush of her-youth, belng 30 this Spring, and her ‘people haven't got much money. - Let me tell you, Brown, a chap’s a darned fool fo get engaged or married just before going to the war. _Even if he has the luck not to Gkget croaked;, he's apt to come back with his ideas all changed. I thought Suzanne was a wonder, and now she bores me - to tears—especially as I can't see how pretty she is.” ““How does she bore you?"I asked. “Oh, every-way. Principally in the affficted-hero business. ‘I don't want to be slobbered over, and I was tucked up like a hedgehog in a hole when this cursed shell jarred .my sight loose. The rest of the bunch was killed. Some-chaps have ail the luck,” he satd bitterly. P 1 was casting about for something to say when the door flew open and Lucia popped in. She looked prettier than ever and L thought, with a pang. what a pity it was that Wade couldn’t see her. He got on. his. feet and stood stifly while I Introduced them. “Mr. Smith has just come back from the war,” I said, “and he has been struck blind by the explosion of a shell.” P “Blind?” Lucia echoed, and looked unbelievingly at Wade's fine eyes, which showed no hint of their affiic- tion, except in a slight indirectness of gaze. “Can’t you see at all?” she demanded, and her tone was curious rather than compassionate. Not a thing,” he answered shortly. “They tell me I never shall.” ERE I UCIA was silent for a moment. Suddenly she shut her eves tight- ly, stood for a moment,. then ad- vanced with groping hands and un- certain steps. “What are you doing?’ be blind,” Lucla answered, without opening her eyes. She reached where he stood &nd touched his chest. He raised his hand involuntarily, and it met hers. Lucia clasped jtsand gave it a little shake. “How da;you do?”’ said she, and laughed. : She opened her eyes and looked at his puzzled, frowning face. . “It must be very inferesting to-be blind,” she 'm glad you think so,” said he, gruffly. “Say, what sort of girl are you, anyhow?"” 3 asked who Suzanne might But Lucia— “Lucia is a very uncommon sort of gM,” I said. “You'd better let her tell you about herself.” “All right,” saild Wade, rather to my surprise. s Lucia had snatched suddenly at the hem of her skirt, pulled it up, and be- came suddenly absorbed in some part of her anatomy. “Lucia,”” I said, mustn’t do that.” ’ “But there’s a flea biting me,” she protested. ‘Wade laughed outright. Lucia looked at him and smiled. “You can be thankful that it's your and not your arms,” said she. hat if you hadn’t any hands to scratch yourself with? And you'd have to be fed like a baby goat.” She looked suddenly at me. ‘“Have you gpt my goat, Mr. Brown?" ‘Wade laughed again. “Gee,” he said; “it seems good to strike somebody who isn't sorry for me.” He held out his hand. *“Come on, you Lucia girl,” said he; “let’s go down to the beach—that is, if you feel like it. I want to hear about you and what is responsible for you “Very well” said Lucla, and_they went out, hand in hand. T heard Lucia say, “I'll shut my eyes, too, and we'll see if we cannot go straight out the gate without running into a prickly tree or something." “Suzanne,” said I to myself, “had better get hard on the quick.” sharply, *“you * % kK wonted, Fiske started in painting with the high-powered energy which appeared to characterize all of his efforts. Fiske's forte was figure and portrait work, and his first requirement, there- fore, a suitable subject. T had been able to secure such models as I need- ed for mermaids and water nymphs and Nereids and Tritons and things from the waiting benches of the mov- ing picture colony, but none of these candidates pleased Fiske. Mrs. Smith was intensely interested in what I told her about my guests, and plainly desired to promote them if, on inspection, they appeared to merit such attention. I took him and Lucia there for tea. Wade may have made some mention of Lucia, but not much, having no desire to share his find. Fiske and Lucia became immediate- ly the center of interest, which did slightest. Then Suzanne Talbot came in and we were presented, and presently I noticed Eliot watching her with a sort of eager intensity. She was really a very beautiful woman, and did not to find her. She was dark and wil- lowy, with soft Euraslan features, dreamy eyes, and such a form as dressmakers love to clothe. Her manner was very subdued, and her voice delicious in its soft cadences. There was, in fact, an almost tropical langour about her speech and motions, but she impressed me as a highly tem- peramental creature® underneath her smooth exterior. Fiske presently attached himself to her and appeared to be getting on rapidly when the time came for us to leave.” We had hardly got started for home before he began to chant her glorles, “There’s a woman T could paint, Ar- thur!” said he, enthusiastically. “Such rich, warm coloring—such expressions! Did you notice her eyes? There's & tion of subtle, feral force about Did you get it?” “I asked her to sit for me, and she sald she would. As you don'’t use the studio in the afternoon, old chap, I thought I might as well start right in. She’s coming tomorrow. “You didn’t lose any time about it,” I said, wondering how much of Su- zanne's acquiescence might be due to Elliot's power of persuasion and how much to discover the source of the studio’s attraction for Wade. ‘Why should 17 Might as well make a start since she’s willing to pose. “I suppose you know that she’s en- gaged to Wade Smith,” I said, and 'felt Lucla stir at my side. Elliot looked decidedly startled. “What!” he cried. “That lovely creature marry a blind man! Impos- sible! Besides, he's toa young for her. He's a fine chap and all that, but he's just a boy, and she’s a splendid, full- blown woman. Elliot looked very much upset, and s0 did-Lucia. Later, as I was sitting alone-on the veranda, she came out andseated herself beside me. . Elliot was in the studio. “Mr. Brown,” said Lucla. “I don’t want Wade to marry Miss Talbot.” “Why not?” I asked. ‘Because 1 have decided to marry .him myself. I think-that he s just ithe sort of husband that I want. He will have plenty of money and is yery g00d looking, and as, he cannot sée other women, there.is no reason why he should not alags:like me best.” “Those: are excellent reasons,” I agreed, “but you see he has already agreed to marry Suzanne, and possibly she-may feel the same way about it that you do.” 'The first doesn’t make any differ- said Lucia, “because he has | told ‘me that he is not the same man he was before being- blinded. Well, you can't expect one man to keep a bromise made by some other man, can jyou? And ‘so far'as Suzanne is con- | cerned, she is perfectly free to try to make him marry her. We can both try_and see which one succeeds. am going to begin tomorrow. “I should say that you had already got a fiying start,” I answered. “How do you purpose going about it—if I may ask?” “You had better walt and see,” said Lucia. “Now I am going to ask father t6 help.” And a fow moments later I, heard growls from the studio which! .1 did not sound helpful. * Kk X 0 I waited and saw, and I must say that Lucia’s candid procedure had its points. Wade had formed the habit of coming to the studio every morning now. - When Lucia joined us the following ' _she started her offensive, “Wade,’ e, “do you want to marry Suzanne Talbot?"” ‘Wade turned his sightless eyes to- Job—and | not embarrass either of them in the (O I|bi moment I was afraid that Lucia would be’ hurt, and apparently the same idea suddenly occurred to the boy, for he sprang up suddenly, reached for the girl and drew her to him. “You little darling!” he said huskily, and before I could realize what was happening, Lucia’s arms had twined themselves about his neck and she crushed her fresh lips to his. There was nothing scattered or dif- fuse about this girl's knowledge of what she wanted or the central focus- ing of her will. Her objective clear and unclouded, she went to it with the direct simplicity of a child or a sage, and got there. Bhe was, at this mo- ment, very much there, in fact, but not for very long, as Wade took her by both soft shoulders and held her at arms’ length, and one would have sworn that he was not only looking at her but seeing her, so intense was the gaze of his sightless eyes. And the lines of his face had grown hard and severe, But Lucia was not dismayed. “Then it's all arranged, isn't it, Wade?"” said she. “No, little girl; it's not,” he an- swered. “I wish it were! But you see—in the first place, a gentleman must never break his word, even if his Ideas and character have changed; and in the second, it would be a low-down trick for a helpless lump like me to marry you before you had a chance to pick and choose for yourself.” ~ “But I have picked and chosen,” Lucia protested. “I have chosen you, Wade. You are the only man I have told that 1 should like to marry, AFTER a few days‘in which to get | though I did tell Mr. Brown that I thought he would make a very nice husband. And you are not a hilpleul lump. You may seem so to yourself and to other people, but you don't to Besides belng a_powerful colorist,] Me: You see, I have always known you as you are now, so I don’t make unpleasant comparisons. “I think I like you better as you are, Wade, becauge if you love me without being able to see me, 1 will know that you love me with your heart and not with your eyes.” ~She .gl:n"lmw “That is the way I loved my , who was not at IDC’;!(ME h all pretty to s was too much for ti boy's self-restraint. He dre'hahego?; him and kissed her. and as he loosed r again, I saw that hi Deetaaatn, t his gyes were “I do love you with my heart, darl- ing kid,” said Wade huskily, “and I love you with my eyes too, even if they can’t see' what a peach you are. But we can’t talk about marrying until we put our house in order. Come ]e;na“ogo"rn to the beach and'let -suffering paint-slin; the job again.” o R * £ % MEANWHILE, deeply immersed in my own job, I had ceased to serve as timekeeper on Lucia and Wade and seem at all the siren I had expected |left the business to work out accord- ing to t e laws of nature and human events. Then, suddenly, the wind \'made things look as if it might work out according to the law of storms. Mrs. Smith dragged me into her boudoir and delivered an edict ex cathedra. "Mr. Brown,” said she, in outraged accents, “I fear that your friend Mr. Fiske has nét rid himself of his Latin quarter principles—or lack of them.” “The latter, as I remember the life,” I answered. “But why this stern m- peachment, chere madame?” “You need not try to gloss it over on the plea of his having spent 20 years on a desert island,” she said. “There are certain things, which no honorable man would do if he were to spend 50 years on a desert island.” “I quite agree with you,” I answer- ed. “In fact. he would be much less apt to do them.” She bit her lip to keep it from twitching. ““Of course, you artists are bound to defend each other,” sald she. “But this is really a very serious and pain- ful matter, the more so as Mr. Fiske has known from the first that Su: zanne was engaged to marry my son. Besides, artists who were men of honor have given me to understand that their studios were to be consid- ered in the same light as the con- sulting room of a surgeo “Some are even more expensive,” I sald; “but we are not required to take any Hippocratic oath, if that is what you mean. “I don’t know what that is, but it is precisely what I mean,” she an- swered. “Yesterday morning, Mr. Fiske invited me to drop in and see the portrait, but as I was busy all day, I did not go until this after- " She hesitated. “Well?” I mu red. ““Well, not to into details T went there about an hour ago. I discov- ered that your fascinating confrere was taking far_more interest in his model than in his work. I withdrew unperceived.” “Sueh things will happen,”.I sighed. oor Elliot!” “Poor rubbish! if you like. The man was 'kissing “‘Hooray!” I exclaimed. eh—resisting?” “‘She was not!” snapped Mrs. Smith. “Let us hope that she was,” I an. swered, “because Wade is not in the least in love with her and’ has abso- lutely no desire to marry her. He told m’—" “Oh,’dear!” sighed Mrs. Smith. was afraid something of the sort might happen, and I did so want him to marry her. 'It would have given him an interest in life.” “He +has got one already,” I de- claréd. Mrs. Smith raised her eye- Do’ the daugh “Do you mean the daughter?” s demanded. 2 e " “The same. - Wade'is deeply in l6ve with her, and she is most thoroughly and sanely in love with him. They told me so. At least, they told each other 80 in my presence. They want to get married—and why not? Lucla is as pure and fresh, or salty, to be precise, as a_sea-anemone, and. she considers Wade's blindness as an ad- vantage.” And I told the anxious mother of what she had said on this score. “She would make him a de- voted wife. It is true that she has no dot—"" “Oh, bother the dot!” Mrs. Smith “But her father—" & ol “Was she— swered, ward her with an expression of as- | mistaken, tonishment such as one seldom sees iter. in those of the blind. “What?” he demanded. Lucia l “Why do you ask that?” he Be growled. ered. He hesitated for a moment, then voice, '-&lhthe-mo‘mfl repeated her question, and | paini the. color surged up 1nto the boy's Cant you sos the miraculous change o 4 - «Yes,” she admitted. “But do you |for last You may soon expect to him spoken of in the same as Sargent, or Brown, the marii ter. And just look at Wade! o swered, herself pointed out, 11 years longer than Suzanne, on H.!;Mr- “Yes; why not?” Lucia demanded. |should think it struck it at a different slant, which | Poor blind Wade, | coq -|could give her theater tickets, and “HERE YOU ARE AGAIN,” HE SNAPPED AT LUCIA. Y KEEP OUT OF THE SMOKING ROOM?” “HOW MA! TIMES MUST I TELL YOU TO Lucia on thinking the arrangement over. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, and on going into the studio. 1 came upon Elliot and Su-| zanne standing side by side in con-| templation of the finished portrait, which has since received such distin- guished recognition. His arm was about her waist, and he did not tak the trouble to remove it on my ent “Don’t let me interrupt,” I sald. “I only came after my pipe. But if yo don’t mind a friendly suggestion, would advise shoving the bolt of the door during the rests. Of course, it does not matter so far as I am con- cerned, but Mrs. Smith looked in here about an hour ago to see the picture, and I have been treating her for shell- shock.” s This brought Suzanne out of her| trance. | “Is that really so, Mr. Brown,” she | asked, “or are you trying to joke?" “I never try to joke,” I snapped, | ‘especially on serious matters. When | I desire to make a joke I get away with it. Mrs. Smith started to come | in to see the portrait and was much | disturbed by what she saw instead, because she had understood that you| were engaged to marry her son. 1| have just come from pointing out to| her the error.” Suzanne shrugged her pretty shoul- ders. i “I am very sorry that Mrs. Smith was disturbed.” said she, “but it seems | to me that Wade has made it plain enough that he wanted me to break the engagement. I should have done so long ago, but I wanted people to {understand that it was his own wish, and that I was not going back on him because of his blindness. How much better it would be, Mr. Brown, if we| could all be as honest and direct 4s) “if we could be that | Otherwise, we might ia Yes,” 1 sighed. way like Lucia. make a mess of BY STERLING HEILIG. PARIS, April 30. HUNDRED years ago this April. Waghington Irving fled from Paris to Spain to get away from an illustrious poet’s widow. Today a Spanish grandee, the Mar- quis de 1a Voga Inclan, has come up to Paris with the program of the ‘Washington Irving centennial fetes, which are going to be held in his country—as result of the sudden flight from temptation which made Irving not only a confirmed old bachelor, but or _of the “Life of Christopher Colimbus,” the “Tales of the Atham- bra” and the *“Conquest of Granada.” The most brilliant celebrations are to be in Seville, where an “American House” is to be opened in his honor. Granada follows, around its historical Washington Irving Hotel. But the real centenary is at Moguer, village above Palos; whence Columbus sailed to the discovery of America. For at Moguer took refuge our American writer when, at the critical age of 40, and’in danger of becoming a Paris fixture, like his friend John iHoward Payne, he found himself ut- terly surrounded by 'the beautiful young widow of the poet Shelley. 'She was “an aristocrat,” according: to Payne, and, once married té Irving, ‘would never have consented to live elsewhere than in London or Paris! Mrs. Shelley. in all the renown of her dead husband's poetry and her young widowhood, dawned on Paris in the Hotel Nelson—where . Payne took meals, It is not possible. to place a_commemorative tablet, as the |Hotel Nelson long ago disappeared, but such hotel boarding houses, with | social relations among guests, re- mained a'Paris feature. Forty years later Mary Esther Lee, daughter of a New York millionaire, met in such| a one the Prince of Schleswig-Holstein im. - . and married hi In Payne' was yleased when the young widow she found that he more so when he as friend I sell appeared 1of Irving, the new light of literature in England as in America. Besides, Irving had ‘money, really needful to get around Paris. - The love story has been completely reconstructed from Payne's letters. Mary ' Shelley, who “had.a passion going to the theater without, pay- x ), flo vacpens R e M Ly ing his friend Irving. ‘When, at oin 'ROM October, -1834,- to the end of that year-Irving lived with Payne uzanne and I are going to be mar- ried, Brown,” said Fiske, “and very soon. I congratulated them warmly, then, being a practical person where other are concerned and having_his cial condition in mind, asked him what he meant by “very soon.” “Oh, right " he “thanks to Luc answered; * x & WAS about to inquire in what way Lucia might prove a commercial set when the girl herself came in. She looked questioningly at the pair, then at me. “Have they told you, Mr. Brown?" s.” 1 answered; “but T don't quite see how they are going to get married on the disposal of one very masterly portrait, even if they were willing to it, which would be a hideous crime.” Have vou waved vour wand e ¢ fai said she. “You 1 decided to 0 and sug- He “1 waved my pen.” see, Mr. Brown, when marry Wade, 1 told fathe gested that he ma Suzanne. told me that I w: looking enough and, in the second, he hadn’t any money. This was quite foolish, as next to you and Wade he is the best-looking man I have seen, and I had thought of a plan for ge ting some money. It seemed to me that as father was Uncle Saltonstall only nephew and everybody knew that he was some day to inherit all his fo tune, it was not fair that he should | sometimes | | | talking nonsense, | mone: s, in the first place, he was not 500d | toue three distant cousins, so he persuaded hem to divide with father. Mr. Cu pper came and told us about it this morning after you had gone. Isn't i nice, Mr. Brown?" “I believe 1 told you once, Elliot that you need not worry about Li slipped up to me that evei- ing as I was sitting on the bench “If it had not been for Wade, ! ! think that I should have married you * said she. “There is absolutely no doubt about it, my dear,” I answered sadly. “I loved Wade from the I first saw him,” said she, did not believe that I could love him as much as I do now. That must be because he is blind to everybody but me.” “He certainly is,” I agreed. “I might have married you just the same, though,” she continued. “if T had not been able to dispose of father and Suzanne, because I should ot have wished to leave father all alone, as he is such a child, and it would not have been quite fair to as she had counted on Wade and has very little own. You see, I t of all this, and that day we first went to the Smiths' for tea and I saw how father was watching her, I told her that vou said father was goimg to be the leading portrait painter of America.” “But 1 hadn't said anything of the I protested. know it.” Lucia answered, “but u have to anticipate u Mr. Browr Tying sort not get any of it because his uncle |little to make things come out prop- thought he had been drowned went to Mr. Culpepper, Mrs. Smith's So 1| erly. Suzanne took more interest in him then, and pretty soon I got & lawyer, and asked him if he could not | chance to suggest to father that I get the mon been a mistake. I had left ov 1 quarter in 1824, today entirely given up té business. Irving moved in, ‘partly to help Payne pay the rent—in one of his earlier letters, he reproaches him with “paying for empty rooms which you do not occup! Irving's brother also came and stayed there. But Payne had good reason for liv- ing in the Rue Richelieu, and even for quitting the flat, at times. He could not live on '“Home, Sweet Home,” although “all the others who exploited it got rich.” Charles Kem- ble gained $10,000 by the copyright, 100,000 copies being sold the first year; but all he paid Johm Howard Payne, its author, was $150 for song and adaptation of “Clari, the Maid of Milan,” in which it appeared. Payne earned his living by hack work for the theater, between Paris and London. He was back and forth. In Paris, the Rue Richelieu began (as it still does) in the place of the re- nowned French State Theater, where he found a valuable friend in the great actor Talma. . Also, the entire theater district of the time was near. Payne was seriously .in love with Mrs. Shelley—who long replied to his numerous notes with “My dear sir.” But, after one evening when he brought ber six theater tickets at once, he became ““My dear Payne.” She could not help criticising Amer. icans, but treated him kindly, and he treated her “as an aristocrat, although he knew that she herself had eloped with the poet Shelley at the age of He answered her criticisms humbly, saying: “Americans, having no privileged class to keep them in mind of high manners, become habitually careless and abrupt. But we have refined feel- ings, and they are no bad substitute, after all!” She counted on Payne's refined feel- ings by pressing for theater tickets without mercy. She let him write her ardent love letters. And she made fre- quent appointments with him—on condition that Washington Irving be of the party. Irving was, undoubtedly, impressed. So runs the Paris tradition. So it appears between the lines of the cor- respondence, .particularly the mass of Payne's letters. * o % % IRVING was at the critical age of was sagging the t habit of going about much with the same few people, in the absorbing yet circumscribed Paris round. Lovely Mary Shelley, alert, e more and more Perhaps he had a glimpse of Mary' double-dealing with his friend, al- though women can be so subtle in those matters. Perhaps the vision of himself as a Parls fixture revolted the American in him—for Mary Shelley made it clear and London were the only spots to live in. 54 Emerson, who was in Paris about | French stage I v back, since there had|thought she would be willing to sit He found that Uncle | for her portrait if he were to ask 00,000 to | her.” France and Spain Pay Tribute To Washington Irving as Writer and Paris have spoiled their own home, can be spared to return t® those cities.” At this point Irving’s treatment of temptation was sudden and decisive. Poor Payne lingered on, and—author of our greatest “home” song—lived and died the Great Expatriate. Irving realized one of the fine things about Paris—you can always flee to Spain! He had long desired to write a life of Columbus, which nobody had done properly until then. So he made for Moguer, above the port of Palos, in the color and the atmosphere of the very place where, sorely tried but ever confident, Columbus lingered and persevered fn his design, hoping against hope. At Moguer they have always kept the rooms and furniture which Wash ington Irving used, all being preserved exactly as he left them, to blotter. pen and inkstand. Thirty years ago I saw them. Each year, before and since, a continuous stream of tourists have been shown them. Spain has the best of reasons to celebrate the hundredth year of Irving's entrance into the’ country where he was to live and write so long. He has drawn more American vis itors to Spain than any one.else— and continues today to draw, more than ever, from both England and America. Columbus, Granada and the Alham bra—he has made them all known and cared for in an intimate way, in England as much as in our own country. FET make his chronicle of the con quest of Granada of the Moors by Ferdinand and Isabella more personal and kindly he imagined out of his own head a Spamish friar—Fray Antonio Agapita—as its author. The learned French lady, Mme. Dleulafoy, who re cently published a_ voluminous and excellent life of Isabella, gravely cites the friar, quite independently of Irving, as a historical authority! The French are organizing to put up an Irving statue, although, in atrict fact, they have small claim to do_so- Irving wrote so little about France The natural spot for the monumen: is 10 be the Square-Louvols, i1 the Rue Richelieu, close to the house where Mary Shelley besieged him. (She, - it must never be forgotten. was author of the famous figure of Frankenstein — romance’ -translated into all languages. Now, there's an allegory for you! = Perhaps Irving glimpsed it.) - bRy * So. the Irving statue in the Place Louvois will be unique—the only one put up by France to a great American whose French distinction is that he might have lived in Paris—and didn't’ But, yes, Irving has another monu ment in France, so-great, so well known to all classes, that his name ix m')'}'hl.v‘in re‘um larly Mmhh ed to it. s is “Rip"—] tongues mnot bothering with the “Van Winkle.” It is the operetta “that has held the oftenest. these 40 years! ‘The music is by the ¥French com- poser, Phnqn%t:::“h(')ne afr “has be- come & prover! ts words) among