Evening Star Newspaper, October 27, 1935, Page 91

Magazine Section eyes and a certainty .in her heart, so that when Chase Harrison came — that night when Mart had been gone a night and a day and another night — and called softly at her door, she was ready and waiting. She bade Chase be seated. Then she took all the gems Mart had given her, all the satins and silks save a dress and a coat and the -shoes that she wore, and laid them where he must sce them when he came in. She wrote a brief note: “We've gone’ and ‘I love him,” and weighted it down with a ring and a brace- let. Then she put on her bonnet, faced Chase Harrison and said, “‘I am ready.” They were married in Memphis, and she knew that her heart had not betrayed her. From Memphis she went with him to Vicksburg and Natchez, to mad San Fran- cisco, to Montana, and to Virginia City, where the gold from Alder Gulch was flowing in a steady yellow stream, dug in a day and spent in an hour. It was in Virginia City that Chase was wounded in a game table argument, shot through the arm with the last bullet ever fired by a man who made boast of his bad- ness. And it was there that Chase told Clarita those things out of his past that she was al- ways to remember, told her as he lay in their shabby hotel room and gathered his strength. He told her of his life as a boy, in the big white house which was gone now: of his mother, who was so voung and bright and alive when he went off to war, and a year in her grave when he returned. And he told her of his life as a youth, in an academy where he had met Mart Reade, and where both had grown up in a code, never forgotten, that made men out of youths. ‘“A gentleman's code.”” There was no smile as he said it. Yes, even a code duello, though that was not taught in the classrooms. It was a code that was taught in the moonlight, two youngsters # fighting with bare fists, stripped to the waist, without seconds, but fighting it out alone, ,each bound by his unspoken word to fight ’" fair no matter what happened.” There was an even more sinister code, for youths grown beyond fists; and this, by local tradition, called for white shirts and pistols and moonlight, each bound by his word to a fair exchange of weapons before they spoke a last word, shook hands like gentlemen, stood back to back in the moonlight, took five paces, tuned and fired — one shot each. Sometimes, there in the moonlight, both fell. A gentleman's code, and a grim one. Chase talked and she listened, and he gathered strength. When he was well again they went down to Leadville. ‘‘Leadyville,” boasted an editor that summer, “‘never sleeps. The theatres close at three in the moring. The dance houses and liquoring shops are never shut. . . . Prospectors are swarming thick as bees.” H. A. W. Tabor paid $40,000 \ for a salted mine, and before the laughter had died down began taking $5,000,000 in THIS WEEK silver from its tunnels. One mine was sold for $50,000 in the morning and that same afternoon was resold for $162,000. Leadville, where the banks could not find room to stow their deposits. It was in Leadville that Chase set himself regular hours, going to his games no earlier than nine o'clock in the evening, returning no later than dawn. And, since a gambler lives by his keen eyes and clear brain and swift fingers, Chase took to resting an hour in the evening, after supper, completely relaxed on the bed; and often he slept, so that he went to his work in trim, like a fighter. All July they lived there, at the Clarendon, whose lobby and bar were known as the Club of the Carbonate Kings. They lived in peace and in luxury, through July and well into August. Then it happened. One evening as Clarita and Chase sat at their table, she saw-Mart get up from his own table far across the room and come toward them. Mart Reade; a bit thin- ner, a bit older, decidedly grey, but Mart Reade, with his long tapering hands, his immaculate clothes, his thin-lipped smile that his dark eyes belied, and his slight bow as he greeted them. He was there, and she knew as she looked in his eyes why he had come. ‘I have found you,” they said. Chase spoke not at all of the meeting, when they had gone to their room; outwardly, he had forgotten the past the moment Mart - Reade had left thetn. A man can ignore a ghost of that kind, or face it and be done with it; a woman must carry it with her wherever she goes. Thus with Clarita. It stood at her side as.she sat sewing. It sat on her bed. It stood near in her dreams. And then that later morning came when Mart, meeting her in the lobby, smiled and said, in his soft Southern drawl, “I shall come for you this evening, Clarita. Chase and I will attend to our — our business at nine o'clock, in the moonlight. And then,” he re- peated, looking down into her eyes, “I shall come." That was all, but Clarita knew. They would meet in the moonlight, as schoolboys had met far away, long ago; but this night they would stand back to back, and walk from each other, and turn, and — She could eat no lunch that day, and all afternoon she lay on her bed feigning a head- ache, though it was her heart, not her head, that was troubled. At supper she knew she was talking too much and too loud and laughing too gaily. Then she saw Chase's eyes, which were grey at the moment, and One evening Mart—an unwelcome ghost from the past—walked again into their lives she knew she must do it. Her voice lowered and her laughter subsided. Together they went back to their rooms. Chase went and stood by the window. At last he turned to His dresser, took off his collar, drew his revolver from that special hip pocket and laid it aside, that he might rest at his ease; then he went to the bed and drew off his bootsand lay down. She watched, and saw him relax, as a child, and thought that he slept. Now was her time. He would lie there for fully an hour. She had not forgotten those girlhood hours spent watching her father, the gunsmith, as he worked at his trade. She picked up the gun and she went with it into the other room. There she loosened the small SCrews. She took out the pin that thrust home from hamnier to cartridge, and she tight- ened the screws. Then she went back. He seemed still to sleep, so she laid it just as she'd found it, on the dresser. . . . Two men would meet in the moonlight, and would walk and would turn like lithe cats, and two guns would glint in the moonlight. Two fingers would squeeze at two triggers. But only one shot would be fired. Only one man would come back. ... Chase roused just as usual, and sat there on the bed and stretched like a fine dog. Then he pulled on his boots; went to the bowl and washed; stood in front of the glass and combed down his hair. He knotted his tie with his usual care, and drew on his coat. Then he turned to the dresser and lifted his gun, hefted it absently there in his hand, and thrust it deep into his pocket. He turned to her, and she went to him and stood, his arms tight around her, her heart beating fast. He kissed her once on the hair and once on the cheek. “I'll not be long tonight, Clarita.” She looked at his eyes. Still they were grey, and there was not even that hint of a smile on his lips. Then he leaned down and held her, kissed her red lips, turned to the door and was gone. She stood there a moment. Then she sprang to the door. She must tell him, call him back and tell him! She must —and then she knew she must not. Fate, like a code, made its own rules, chose its own agents, went its own way. Only women dared tamper with fate, and even women — Clarita returned to her chair, and as she sat down she was all in a quiver. Soon she was crying. It was five minutes after nine, and Clarita still stood there by the window. Yes, it would be over by now. They would have kept their pact, in their own way, and he would be walking back, to her who had taken fate into her own slender hands. Two men would have walked out into the moonlight together, as men had walked out into the moonlight there tothesouth. They would have paused a moment for that final exchange of weapons. Then they would have stood back-to-back for a moment, and then begun walking apart — five paces. Gentlemen to the end, men with a code. She turned to her chair, picked up her sewing and made four nervous stitches. But suppose — suppose something had happened. Suppose fate — - There was a sound outside, in the hallway, and she started, almost sprang from her chair. Then she settled back. No, it was too heavy for the step that she knew. Could she ever forget that footstep? It would echo forever . in her brain. . . . Suppose fate, now that she’d taken a hand in the game, changed the rules. Suppose they — No, no! It could not; it must not be!. .. Only a moment later she knew he was there, in the hall, at the door. She sprang to her feet and stood and waited. There was no hesitation in the step, no pause at the door. The knob turned. The door opened. He stood there in the room. Then she was in his arms; he was saying soft words that she heard only as his voice, and she was sobbing. He kissed her, and they stood a bit apart. She looked up into his eyes and smiled. ¢ “It is — over?” He nodded: ‘“Yes."” “Did he —did he stand by the code of a duel in the moonlight?” uYs'n “Even to the final exchange — of guns?” ““Yes, darling.” As she looked into Chase Harrison’s eyes again she saw that, though they were now blue, they were tronbled and — did she im- agine it? — questioning.