Evening Star Newspaper, June 16, 1935, Page 83

Magazine Section THIS WEEK 3 . W ‘ | T | Y llk“JL g ' Illustration by Harry L. Timmins i P 3 4 ith Wings as BEagles by G. B. STERN HE waiter had died of heart failure while actually crossing the dining room of the little chalet-hotel in . the French Alps. With the pot- au-feu in his hand, he crumpled up and fell . down. It was all very shocking. And Monsieur Hippolyte Aubertin made himself extremely unpopular among the other guests by con- tinuing stolidly to remain at his table, sur- rounded by his enormous family: wife, sister, married daughter, son-in-law, brother-in- law, and six unmarried children; he saw no good reason why the rest of the table d'hite should not continue to be served to them. When the flurry had calmed down and (of course) the waiter had been removed, his defence was, when attacked for lack of sensibility, that he had arranged to pay en pension rates and, as the waiter had died at the soup, to leave off then would represent a heavy loss to him of twelve dinners. Or per- haps he should say eleven dinners, since his son-in-law seemed to have too delicate a stomach to consider dinner after such a catastrophe. i At this, Monsieur Camille Rouvier, a pale shrinking abject little man, smiled up apolo- getically at his overbearing father-in-law, who paid no attention but continued his argument. If the tragedy had happened at the crépes Suzelle, he reasoned, ah, then neither that English Mademoiselle Hebe nor anyone else should have cause to upbraid him for hard- heartedness. This coarse point of view caused a violent -eaction in favor of what the waiter left behind 1im, among the guests of the Grand Hotel de a Vache d'Or et de I'Univers. What he left sehind him, pauvre gar¢on, was a family, poor and suffering; not for them a five-course linner every night, paid for en pension. The yoor fellow was young, and had had no time .0 save and make provision. So the visitors decided to hold a benefit -affle in the hotel. Each guest contributed ;ome more or less valuable object, or else took iickets, paying whatever he could afford. Un- xpectedly, Monsieur Aubertin took the argest number of tickets and paid the most ; 10t because he was intimidated by the dis- ipproval of the other guests, but because he vas genuinely sorry for the waiter's wife and family. The sensitive son-in-law bought only one ticket, but it was rumored that he was employed in hig father-in-law's factory and grossly underpaid. Sebastian Medway’s contribution caused loud exclamations of comment and desire. It . was a beautiful platinum cigarette case witha tiny eagle on it in diamonds. Hebe picked it up as it lay among the other gifts to be raftled the next day, opened it and read aloud the inscription scratched inside: “‘Toi et moi, in memory of a certain evening in April.”” She smiled. ** ‘Toi el moi'! I wonder you can bear to part with it.” Yes, her mouth smiled, but her eyes were dark with jealousy. Yet it was not she who cared about Sebastian. On the contrary, he had been in thrall to her now for over two vears. He went where she went, mocking at himself, breaking away and returning again; always extolling her beauty in wild verse, with a sudden fall to earth, a shrug of the shoulders, in the last line. “‘Heine,” said the critics, and ‘“‘Heine,” said his friends, who did not enjoy the Hebe era, and wondered, so to speak, when he would wake up. “My nectarine,” he replied now, bur- lesquing her name, as he often did; for he insisted that the nectar her prototype poured for the gods was no better than sticky fruit cordial. ““Why shouldn’t 1 bear to give it away? I have nineteen other cases, and even then I prefer to use the paper packet.” “What would she say?"’ “Who?" WiMoag.t Y “Darling, if I could remember who ‘mo:’ was, I could easily tell you what she’d say. I've a talent for characteristic improvisa- tions.” “You actually don't remember?”’ She dis- believed him. “I expect I loved her with a deathly pas- sion; that is, if ‘lei’ is myself. Perhaps it isn't. And even then, I sometimes forget myself. You have often told me so: ‘Sebastian! You forget yourself.’ "’ They were standing at the doorway of the wooden veranda, apart from the busy group arranging the raffle in the antlered lounge. Nearby sat little Monsieur Rouvier with his wife, she placidly knitting, he listening with absorbed attention’to the strange sayings of this mad Englishman. The Brown family just behind them were quarreling over a moun- taineering jigsaw, as yet sublimely unaware that thirteen important pieces were missing. Loudest and shrillest came the voice of Sonny Brown, aged twelve; yet it did not mingle dis- agreeably with the faint tinkles and calls across the meadows; the cows were being driven in for their sunset milking. The mo- ment should have been idyllic if Hebe had loved Sebastian, but she loved only her pos- session of a poet. “You can’t have forgotten,” she insisted, “‘which ‘certain evening’ she meant.” ““Who meant?'’ he teased her. ‘‘ ‘Moi’ meant.” “I don't know. There was a certain evening, I remember it most distinctly, but it was in November, not in April. There was a fog, but she might have thought it a shower; that would account for ‘April,” wouldn't it? What do vou think, Hebe?"” gave this to you?”’ I loved her with a deathly passion” “You don’t remember, Sebastian, who “Oh, I expect “I think,”” said Hebe, tired of the subject, “that your cigarette case might as well go to the raffle to help poor Baptiste's wife and babies. And"I hope I shall win it. What are you thinking of, Sebastian?"’ His eyes were so dreamy that she supposed it must be a sonnet, another sonnet extolling her beauty. ‘““A raffle always reminds me of the story of the farmer’s cow. Or perhaps the cows were reminding me of the story of the farmer’s raffle. It's quite a funny story.” Listlessly she lit a cigarette. . ““You see, the parson wanted money for a new roof for his church: it had been severely damaged by lightning and a falling tree. He - approached the only rich farmer in his parish, who said he couldn't afford to contribute cash, but that he would get it by giving his favorite cow to be raffled. Everyone for miles around took tickets for the cow. Directly after thedraw, the farmer’s wife rushed on the