Evening Star Newspaper, September 13, 1931, Page 80

THE Nothing Will <ver Happen To Me Again The Remarkable Story of a Woman Whose Heart Had T'urned to Stone. By Ruth Couifert Mitchell. Tllustrated by Hugli Hutte:. R o RS. MONTROSE had the misfor- ture to wake at 7 o'clock that .mo-nin~t after a resiless night and she fsund herself u terly unsble to go to slezp again. She dragged hcrself up on her pillows and re- garded with equal horror the b.ight face of her little French clock and the dull day slinkinz in upon her through the orchid curtains at the windows. e Her househo'd, unaccusiomed to dawn ris- ings, was wrapped in s'umb>r, bui Mrs. Mont- saw no reason why she should sufler alone. She rang long and petulantly for her maid and was mecre than ordinarily caustic when the woman arrived. By 9:30 o'clock Mrs, Montrose had finished with breakfast and everything Agnes could do for her, and found he:self at loose ends in the bleak beginning of a raw Spring day, so she decided to mount to the fourth floor and bait her brother-in-l.w. In a world of vanished thrills and dulled appetites and advancing discomforts, that was one diversion which never failed her. Her daughter's husband, Raoul de la Tour, was a young French nobl>man of proud and ancient lineage who looked, oddiy enough, ex- actly like a young French nobleman of proud and ancient lineage. Indeed, looking at his high romantic brow with its raven wing of black and glossy hair, his sensitive aquiline nose, his dark and brilliant eyes and the sharp clean cut of his chin, a beholder could easily picture him a knight of old, handsomely mounted, dashing boldly about answering every su sccour! in gallant hasle. rose BUT now the dashing days of the Duc de Ja Tour were done. His excursions consis‘ed only of the slow and painful trips from bed to chair, and he would leave his suite of charm- ingly furnished rooms but ogce again. *A motor accident had so nearly killed him that it had seemed hardly worth while to patch e crushed and battered body together again and the duc had wanted ardently to die, but Mrs. Montrose had wanted him to live. She wanted him to live a long time and she wanted to watch him doing it, so she took solid satisfaction in the great surgeon’s assurances that, with the tender care and skill which sur- rounded him, he might reasonably expect & normal lease of life. The day attendant was amazed at her early call and the duc's sad eyes widened with sur- prise. Nevertheless he said, “Bon jour, madame!” quickly and pleasantly. Pleasantness and cour- tesy were so deeply ingrained in Raoul de la Tour that he could seldom remember to lay them aside even in the presence of the two women who hated him. *“Good morning, my dear Raoul!" Mrs. Mont- rose replied liltingly with & rising inflection which was particularly irritating. “A merry morning, isn't it? I woke early, and hurried to greet you.” She permitted the back of her hand to be kissed. - “It is very amiable of you, madame,” he said levelly. «Isn't it?” she agreed cordially. “Thank you, Jencen.” She accepted the chair which the man-servant brought forward. The duc at the beginning of his imprisonment had in- cautiously expressed a preference for valets of his own nationalily, with the result that both the day and night nurses were Swedish. Mrs. Montrose studied her scn-in-law with concern. If she could have detached herself from the situaticn sufficiently to analyze it calmly she would have realized that the reason for her venom was that the duc had made her ridiculous. Raoul Pierre Henri Eugen (Duc de la Tour) had married her plain and difficult daughter Do othy, to the astounded #nd respectful won- der of her world, and a little less than a year later the racing car in which he was driving a lurid young lady frcm a night club had argued with an express train for first use of a crossing. The young lady, who could never have danced again, had the good fortune to die, but Mrs. Montrose had contrived to have him continue living. Dorothy de la Tour, a few months after the accident, had given bitter and reluctant birth to a daughter, a child who had decreased her slender chances of welcome and popularity by faithfully copying her father’s beauty in tiny feminine form, and who had attained 5 dell- cately wiry and vigorous years under the calin care of a robust fraulein.: - « O vici%s of the little Antoinette, named for his mothe, were the cn'y periods in the 24 1 s when the duc knew a few moments of The site happi . so Lirs. M_ntrose had ex- ned earncs'ly to fraulcin that she feared the sing effect «f tle poor gentleman's con- citien ypon the child's sensitive mind. It would be well. she felt, to make the visits very brief. “And what are your plans for today, my dear Raoui’” she n-w injuired. “My plans fer today, madime,” said the youing man, managing to speak levelly still, “a‘e more cr less like those of yesterday—and tomorrow.” She smiled deprecatingly. “No guests? Itge seems rather a pity, with your rare social gift, to isolate ycurself so completely.” There was a faint Gallic lifting of one un- even shculder. “I seem rather to have lost my tastz for guests. The fellows from the embassy drcp in sometimes and smoke a ciga- 1ette. They are very good, but one sees that they do not find it—amusirg.” “Fancy!” Mrs. Montrose shook her head. “Now I, dear boy, always find ycu amusing.” “I am sure of that, madame,” he replied, meet.ng her sharp gaze. Mrs. Montrose had been a great beauty in er youth. Raoul, look.ng at his mother-in- law, ccntrasted her, as he often did, with his own mother. The two ladies had, he b:lieved, about the same yea's. but the little old duchesse had gone gayly down the road to meet old ladyhood, with the result that it had linked arms with her and footed it merrily back again. His mother was pink and white and gray, and she wore shabby old silk dresses and a little high, round stomach without shame, while Mrs. Mcntrose gave an effect of henna and ivory and magenta, and her rigidly armored body never curved nor sagged, but her face looked tired for all its tinting and pummeling and bracing. ’l‘HE Duchesse de la Tour had s:id those ages ago. archly and tenderly: “You must bring home a bide to the old chei:au, my dear Raoul. Aud she must be good and beautiful and rich! These three things in the order which I have named. And she will restore for us the dear old hcme and we will love her deeply and be very proud of her, and presently there will be grandchildren at my knee and glad ncises in the old place again!” Dorothy Montrose had lacked the second qualification, but he had been sure of the other two. She was assuredly rich, that was obvi- ous; and. of course, she was good. He had been really very quaint about it. He would marry the rich and good Americah girl and bring her home to the chateau, and he and his mother would love her warmly and gratefully, and presently there would be repairs on the old house, and improvements on the farm, and children at the knee of the old duchesse. But the facts had been disturbingly differ- ent. His wife was. good only in the rubber- stamp meaning of the word; she had a lean and niggardly chastity; and beyond that she was il- tempered, suspicious, rude, jealous; and found life in rural France unendurably dull. She made fun of the old house and the old servants and her husband met it with sunny good nature, but when she bezan to make fun of the duchesse, he conscnted suddenly to return to America. And now the old duchesse tended her flowers and wept.a little into pots of mignonette and waited for the American mail, and her son made slow and difficult trips from bed to chair; and Dorothy, Duchess de lJa Tour, ate up her thrills—it was tap-dancing at the moment—and managed never to be at home; and the little Antoinette trudged out for walks with her fraulein. Mrs. Montrose, her gimlet gaze upon her son- in-law's face, saw by its swift lighting that his chilg was at the door. The little Antoinette was an arrestingly lovely creature, and she adored her father. The grandmother, watch- ing, reflected that it was a long time since she had happened to observe them together and she had forgotten, if indeed she had ever ‘fully realized, what the little daughter meant to the imprisoned duc. Sitting silent during the child's call, she watched them closely and saw that Raoul, while the child was in the room, took on and radiated such a quality of joy that he looked suddenly wel! and strong and vital again. She saw now how she could punish him with a severity beyond her most' vehement imaginings. It was therefore a cruel shock to her when SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 13, 1931, S AN o X i RE 0\ Nienae -— - O N e e She stool still. looking down at him with an expression of wretchedness and . boredom which was shocking. “Nothing,” she said in a strange voice, “nothing will ever happen to me again.” the duc, waiting until the solid tread of the fraulein had ceased in the corridor, turned to her a face vivid wi h eagerness and cried: “Ah, madame, I can wait no longer to beg you for the boon near:st my heart! Please, I implore you, send the child to my mother in France!” Mrs. Montrose stared at him in stupefaction. “Bu.—you don’t enjoy her visits? She makes you nervcus?” Color flamed in his thin face. “Madame, she is life to me!” “Well, then,” she probed, “don’t you realize what it will mean #0 you to lose her?” He grew swiftly pale again. “I realize also, madame, what it would mean to me to save herf™ Mrs. Montrose bridled, “Save her?"” “Save her, madame.,” he repeated steadily. “You know very well and I know what she will become if she grows up in this cold house.’ *Cold house?” Raoui managed his remnant of a shrug. “My mother's chateau is very warm with af- fection, madame, even though it has not the sieam heat.” She made a shuddering grimace. “Dorothy has described it. Just what do vou think your practically penniless mother in her leaking old shell of a barracks could do for Antoinette that I can’t do for her?” “MADAME," he said, uns‘eadily now, “she could love her.” Mrs. Montrose, hastily rearranging her plans and purposes, did not answer. He went on presently: “In Summer my mother would take her to the cottage in Brittany. It is by the sea, Madame, and there are bright flowers in the small garden between rows of shells. and the sky is like a blue bowl, and white geese come walking drolly down the lane——" He broke ofl, his voice a little husky. “There the child would be happy and inno- cent and good and——" “Shabby and obscure and spoiled!” Mrs. Montrose cut in briskly. She had readjusted herself. She was not to be disappointed after all. Here was a new way, poignant beyond her liveliest imaginings. “I couldn't think of it, my dear Raoul! Really, I wonder at your sug- gesting it—planning to tear a child from her mother's arms!" Much as he wished to conciliate her, he could not keep his lip from curling. “Her mother’s arms, Madame, enfold her.” Scrutinizing her expression, he grew paler until his eyes were like black pools in snow. It was to be denied him then—this one last vital gesture in a dead life? Mrs. Montrose, watching his mobile face, grew very cheerful. “No, my dear Duc! The idea is preposterous. 1 hope you will put it out of your mind.” Her wish, the young man knew, was the exact opposite of her words. He dropped his eyes and achieved a stern self-control. His enemy, observing him, saw him slowly winning back his habitual calm and poise. She continued to sit uncomfortably on the edge of her chair and stare at him, and gradually the sense of triumph dulled and faded and a limp and dreary lassitude overcame her. It required a definite effort to pull herself together and to the point of leaving. and the Duc de la Tour was making an equal effort. “Adieu, madame!” he said levelly, once more touching his lips to the back of her hand. “A thousand thanks for vour most kind call, and one hopes that something very delightful will happen to you today!” Mrs. Montrose started to reply in kind, but a curious thing occurred. She stood still, look- ing down at him with an expression of revealed and naked wretchedness and boredom which was shocking. “Nothing,” she said in & strange voice, “nothing—as you very well know—=W@ bappen very rarely to me today. again.” 3 She remained standing in silence, thinking it over, her expression holding, and then as she passed through the door she repeated her words as if to herself, aghast: “Nothing will ever happen to me again!” But by 3 o'cleck in the afternoon Mrs. Mont- Nothing will ever happen to me "rose had been restored to her usual state of mind. She had sought three solaces—the min- istrations of her favorite Beaute Salon, food in . her favorite restaurant and the society of her most cringing poor relation—and they had not failed her. : She decided now to spend an hour at Valen- tine's. She did not need new clothes, but she needed the atmosphere exuded by the woman and her establishment. Valentine, a French- American woman of lean middle age, was the cleverest of her keen and canny tribe. She made a sp2cialty of catering to women of Mrs. Montrose's type. and to that end she engaged saleswomen who were not markedly young, slim or lovely. The red-head>d girl known to the trade as Miss Yvonne had always caused Valentine a faint uneasiness because she was short of 25, thin to the point of transparency and narrowly grazed the borderline of beauty, but she had an inspired tact with difficult customers which made her indispensable. She came forward at once to greet Mrs, Montrose, her hair a coppery glow above her white face. Miss Yvonne had what might almost be termed a bedside manner with her - customers, and Mrs. Montrose leaned back Jux- uriously in her chair. “I was hoping Madame would come in today,” the warm young voice said purringly. *“You remember, Miss Iris? I spoke to you this morn- ing about that little orchid chiffon velvet and said it would be parfect for Mrs. Montrose.” “Perfectly!” Miss Iris played up. Mrs. Montrose thought it was dear of them, - but they disclaimed any credit. Miss Yvonne might bring the little orchid thing. Mrs. Mont- rose sank back in her chair and accepted a thimbleful of pale but pungent tea and a sliver of toast from a yellow-haired girl in a gay prin slip. ] - HALP an hour went by deliciously—so de- liciously that she did not mark the growing “strangeness in the manner of the young woman who was bringing little mauve satin things and little smoke crepe things and clever little tulle trifiles in negligze —they were all “little” things always at Valentine's. Miss Yvonne's hothouse pallor had been invaded by two feverish erimson spots on her chezkboncs and her gray-green eyes had grown bright and her voice was getting shrill. “Very conservatively priced at three and a quarter,” she said, and when her customer repeated it languidly after her, agreeing, the salesperson emitted a sudden little yelp which was startling in that low-toned, heavily padded room. “Very conservatively priced at three and a quarter!” said Miss Yvonne again in a loud _and piercing tone. Miss Iris, hastening to her side, felt certain that her fellow-worker had been cvercome by & sudden pain. i “Not $3.25." continued Miss Yvonne shrilly, “but $325—for four yards of velvet and 10 _inches of fur and half an hour's smocking!” “Yvonne! Hush! You mustn't—-—" But the sharp voice did not cease. “And the little mauve satin at two and a half, and the smoky crepe at only a hundred and seventy- five—imagine—and the little negligee positively thrown in at ninety-eight—and how much was the wrap, the little informal evening throw for Florida nights? Four and three-quarters, wasn't Continued on Eighteenth Page