The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1903, Page 6

TH By William E TISSUE-PAPER MAN B. Osborne — “They can’t have you,” she an- swered gently. (Copyright, 1903, by T. C. McClure.) HE mald knocked gently upon Miss Catherwood’'s door and handed in a card. Miss Cather- wood looked at 1t and tossed it to the s -3 floor. Oh, the dickens!” she said frankly. It will be seen at once that, although Miss Catherwood was a young lady of beauty and charming personal char- acteristics, -she had decided opinions about various things. One of the things was Mr. Anthony Wadsworth, who, as appeared, was waiting below an audience with her. “The dickens!” reiterated Miss Catherwood, “I suppose I shall have to see him.” Miss Catherwood's mother happened to be within earshot. “Who 1s 1t?” she inquired. She was informed. “Dear ‘me,” sald Miss Catherwood's mother, “why, Mr. An- thony Wadsworth has always appeared to me to be a very proper young man.” “That’s just the trouble, mother,” returned Miss Catherwood, “he’s too proper. He's too conventional. He's a tissue-paper man.” “Dear me,” answered her mother; “he—he doesn’t look llke a tissue- paper man.” “Oh, I know,” petulantly responded the young lady. *“I know; he's just about the proper weight and proper height, and his shoulders are just the proper breadth. He's like a pattern— a fashion plate. He's just unbeara- ble.” Miss Catherwood’'s mother, who could not quite reconcile her daugh- ter's premises with her conclusion, sighed. Her daughter swept out of the room and went downstairs. Mr. Anthony Wadsworth rose as she entered and bowed in a gquaint old- fashioned way. He was flustered and embarrassed—and there was good reason for it. For Mr. Anthony Wads- worth was there for a purpose, and his purpose ultimately became apparent. He was there to propose to Miss Catherwood, and he proposed. He didn’t do 1t very well, and Miss Cather- wood, who had had a proposal or two before, as she listened to him, made mental comparisons that were un- favorable to this particular suitor. “Don’'t—don’t give me your answer to-night,” implored Mr. Wadsworth, the perspiration standing out upon his brow; “wait—wait until to-morrow night. Take time.” Miss Catherwood, who would have preferred to end it at once, assented. She sald with all the coldness she could summon to her aid that she would congider it; that she would wait until to-morrow night. And she had a reason for it. She had an emgage- ment with Tommy Boggs for the next night; and she intended to write a short note for Mr. Wadsworth to re- celve when he came. That would be the end of Mr. Wadsworth. She started with Tommy about 7 o'clock in the evening, in order to get a choice seat in the ladies’ quarters. She left the fatal note with her moth- er, with Instructions to hand it to Mr. Wadsworth; she told her mother what it was. Her mother, who was a very tender-hearted old lady, met Mr. Wadsworth at the door—he came at 8 o'clock sharp—and Mr. Wadsworth was so downhearted when he found that Miss Catherwood was out that the old lady thought she would keep the note to herself. “I'll—T'll call to-morrow evening,” sald Mr. Wadsworth, tremulously; “she probably forgot last night that the had this—this engagement for to- night, although—. I'll call to-morrow night.” Down in the Fourteenth Ward In Bailey’s hall Tommy Boggs and Miss Catherwood were having the time of their lives. The campaign was in full blast—election was mear at hand. Miss Catherwood kept her eyes on the epeaker, and she listened to every word he said. “Isn’t he fine?” she exclaimed to Tommy. “It's just great to be a man like that—a man who can sway men.” There was a burst of applause from something more than one-third of the crowd as the man upon the platform paused in his speech at the proper place. He was a paid campaign orator, and he was good at that. But there was just a bit of dissatisfaction visi- ble upon the faces'of the crowd. A man near Miss Catherwood moved about uneasily. “Aw—" he said, bring on the Alderman? —'s the use o' this?” Another man nudged him. “The Alderman,” he explained, “ain’t a-goin’ to be on hand to-night.” As he spcke a stout man entered from behind the scenes and stepped up toward the front of the stage. He was cheered loudly. “That must be the Alderman,” whis- pered Miss Catherwood to Tommy Boggs. But he wasn't. He whispered for a moment to the speaker, and the speaker nodded and shook his head. The big man raised Iis hand. “Ladies and gents,” he said, “we'd fully expected to have the Aiderman with us here to-night, but I'm givin’ it to you straight that~" He was interrunted by a mighty yell. “Hi, hi, hi!” yelled the crowd; “what ye givin’ us? Look behind you!" The big man turned and everybody looked and howled. *“Hooray! hooray! hooray!" velled the crowd. Miss Cath- erwood looked with the rest, and then she gave a little gasp. For the man that the whole crowd was looking and yelling at was a young man attired in a full-dress suit. He was bowing, with conventional stiffness, right and left. And he was none other than Mr. An- thony Wadsworth. “Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony!" yelled the crowd. The big man stepped for- ward: “Mr. Tony Wadsworth.,” he ex- claimed, by way of introduction, and pandemonium broke loose. Mr. An- thony Wadsworth stepped forward a pace or two. “Ain’t he corkin’,” sald the loquacious individual near Miss Catherwood, *“and he always comes here in a swallow-tail suit—he knows what's what, he does.” Wadsworth nodded, and the crowd became instantly silent. “I didn’t In- tend to be here to-night,” he explained. He hegitated. “The fact is,”” he went on, “I had an engagement with my girl and she turned me down. I didn’t have any other place to go and I came here.” This, in black and white, amounts to nothing. But it was the way that Wadsworth said it that took. “Ha, ha, ha!” roared the crowd; “imagine Tony’s girl a-turnin’ of him down. Go on, Tony.” Mr. Anthony Wadsworth raised his hand high in the air and started in. Suddenly he stopped. He was looking directly into the eyes of Miss Cather- wood herself. He turned white and then he turned red. Thenr he turned away, and apparently forgot her. And then he started in. He started in as only Alderman Anthony Wadsworth knew how. Miss Catherwood had thought the campalgn orator had talked as no other man could talk. That was because she had never heard Mr. Anthony Wadsworth. With one hand In his trousers pocket and the other in the air, the Alderman walked yp and down the stage, casting into the very faces of his audience, humor, pathos, expletive, vituperation, sar- casm, congratulation—everything. And when he finished the crowd surged up to the platform and literally overwhelmed him. Miss Catherwood, when it was all over, drew a sharp breath. “To think,” she wailed to her- self, “that I have refused such a man.” The next night Mr. Anthony Wads- worth called upon her. She met him at the door. She was radiant. “I—I've come to ask your pardon,” he said contritely. “For what?” she inquired. “You—you haven't forgotten,” he stammered, “about—about my—my girl last night. I—I don't know why I said it. I felt reckless, I suppose.” She laughed joyously. “That,” she said, “is the only part ef your speech last night that I had forgotten. It was just superb.” He laughed. “Dear me,” swered, “that's nothing; im politics has to do that. That's not the question,” he went on. “There's something else.” “W-—what?” she inquired timidly. “l want to know,” he continued, ““whether—whether my—my girl is go- ing to turn me down to-night. If so, I've got a meeting in the Fifth Dis- trict—the boys are waiting for me.” Miss Catherwood stepped toward him and held out her hand. “They can’t have you,” she answered gently, “Anthony Wadsworth, Alderman.” 3 “why don’'t they ‘What the he an- every fellow THE BUNDAY CALL. By Sarah Lindsay Coleman ——-se e ‘ LUCK IN A FOUR LEAF RAHAM stood in the center of the group of young women who were loud In their regret at his depart- ure, [Elizabeth, a swirl of charming femininity in crisp, beflounced muslin, well aware of her beauty, and of the maddening tilt of her adorable chin, swept down the stairs and out to the steps, where she lingered just long enough to give him a cool, little good-by and drifted on. In her wake was the Small One, her faith- ful foliower. Graham talked blithely. It wasn't the easiest thing he'd ever dome. He was vividly conscious of Klizabeth out there beyond the lawn standing knee- deep in clover. . 1n his haste to get away from a place grown unfriendly over night, he ran down the steps as the trap came around, and almost stumbled over the breathless Small One. With words not intelligible to the uninitiated, she thrust something warm and moist into his hand. “Did you mean it?” he asked eagerly. He had raced over the lawn with the child on his shoulder. “One leaf, you know, is for love.” “No; net that. It's just my good-by. It's to bring you all that a four-leaf can bring; it's to ask you to think of me more kindly.” She broke off to cry. XDa you think I'm rich?” she flung out defiantly. “Perhaps so; perhaps not.” Graham spoke contentedly. ‘“Most of us here have money enough to keep us going.” “I haven't!” she cried sharply. “I don't belong among you! I'm Cinder- ella slipped into Vanity Fair—as poor as a church mouse. I never went to a house party before. I sold the pitiful little place I owned to come’here. I'm tired of counting pennies, of golng shabby, of being starved of all that is beautiful and desirable in life, and 50— “You're going to marry me,” said Graham. “And so I'm going to marry Mr. Van Horn,” defiantly. “I'm golng to leave the schoolroom grind behind me, the debts and duns and skimpy dinners. You see how I take to luxury,” with a laugh that had no joy in it. “I'm born for it. T've got a line of ancestors that gtretch across the sea, beauty, a They had met at the summer re- sorts. her manner and no heart to speak of.” “Graham,” called his host. “Have you said yes to Van Horn?" asked Graham. “Not yet,” she said, a touch of de- flance in her voice, as though’ she feared something within herself. “It was just after you asked me last night. But I intend to.” Suddenly her lips quivered and she cried, “I don't want you to hate me, so I sent you the clover.” = ./ “There’s but one life. it with me, dear?"” She shook her head; there was a sob in her throat. “Is it so hard?” asked the man. The child came nearer as he spoke, caught the girl's gown and looked at them with wide, half frightened eyes. “Too hard?” sternly. g “Graham!” shouted his host, “you'll miss your train!” “Good-by," he said. The girl stood motionless, her eyes downcast. He was going! What were jewels, fine gowns, the Van Horn money—any- thing, everything, without him. She clutched his arm, but her words choked In her throat. “Billy!” she cried, desperately. Graham swung around. “Billy, I don’t—want—anything—but —you!” Graham laughed out, the laugh of the man triumphant, and the Small One joined in with shrill and prolonged lee. sr“Glrl!v" said their hostess, and she waved her hand tragically, “he had me under solemn promise. I was aching to tell you—it was a cruel position. I ‘Will you spend “She turned her head and met Haworth’s gaze.” stood here helpless, and out there,” with another sweep that took in the universe, “Elizabeth refused him. He wants to be married for himself—such an old fogy idea—but he's very much worth while: he’s president of facto- ries and banks and trusts, all spelled with a capital, and, and,” in a shrill little wail “Elizabeth, not knowing, re- fused him. All her color shattered by the words she had heard, Elizabeth stood among them silent. She was wishing desper- ately that he was poor, that she might make the sacrifice for him, and her wistfulness shone in her eyes. “Poor Elizabeth,” said their hgstess. “But the Van Horn's left,” cried a soft, malicious girl voice, Suddenly Elizabeth laughed, a gay little staccato that ended in a ripple of poor mirth, “Yes,” she said, “he is.” HER PRINCE OF DREAMS By Izola L. Forrester’ (Copyright, 1903, by T. C. McClure.) T2 §5—g F course you are his friend.” “It makes no dif- ference.” “No,” she assented, doubtfully. “Only in the point of view. It would create a cer- fin prejudice—the friendliness. I mean in his favor, and you don't know Marjorie as I do.” Stephen glanced down the’ long, candle-shaded dinner table to where Marjorie sat. A group of yellow chrys- anthemums mingled their gold with the tint of her hair, and her face was half hidden by them. Only a slightly tilted chin was visible. It was a de- liclous chin, piquant and Interrogative, and he knew that she was talking to Haworth. “You're going to marry me,” said Graham. “Do you think she is serious?” he asked. “Oh, not yet. But she drifts with him, and that is one of his most at- tractive qualities—drifting. You drift, and drift, and” think you are steering, and all at once—" She hesitated, frowningly. “Overboard?”’ suggested Stephen. “Yes, when®you never dreamt of be- ing in love. He seems so harmless, so colorless, you know what I mean. Most men have to be amused. You feel on guard with them. But Haworth is rest- ful. Before you know it you are per- fectly natural with him and you talk, and drift, and talk, and all he says is yes, yes, and all he does is look at you, not as if you were just a rather good- looking girl, but as if you were really a thinking, reasoning individual. And Marjorie will like that. And then some day she'll look in his eyes and waken and lose self in love.” “Cribbed,” said Stephen, softly. “Awfully pretty, Con, but it's an_echo from a greater even than thou. Have some of the salmon a la heaven knows what. It's coming our way.” Constance let the salmon pass, and smiled contentedly at the plain, youth- ful face beside her. Even the eye- glasses, perched airily on a nonde- script nose, could add neither age nor wisdom to it. “Stephen, you are a dear,” she sald. “You are a blessed relief to a threat- ened possibllity of sentiment. After Marjorie’'s married to Haworth I think I shall adopt you.™ “As a relief to a threatened possi- bility, ete?” “No. The possibility only threat- A PAIR OF SLIPPERS---By W. W. UT, sweetheart, you are not going to be jealous of a girl I never saw—a girl who probably never existed. Remember that I never heard anything but her voice, and it is quite possible that she was as homely as original sin.” Tom Riker was provoked. Theoreti- cally, he held that in every love affair there should be some temporary ob- stacle to the happiness of the lovers. These temporary obstacles not only gave spice to the love affairs them- selves, but they afforded hardworking novelists like himself a fair chance to earn & living. Now he was finding a lifetime of theory deftly upset by a few moments of practice. His courtship of and engagement to Anne Lorrimer had been a very commonplace affair, but he was so much in love that he could not see the advantage of obstacles, temporary or otherwise. They had met at the summer resort and were thrown together constantly from the first meet- ing by relatives and friends, who had promptly decided that the match would be a good one. Now the inevitable rift in the lute had appeared in Anne's jeal- ousy of the heroine whom Riker had painted in his newest and most suc- cessful book, “A Pair of Slippers.” “Of course, she may have been home- ly and all that,” sald Anne, with an air of dissatisfastion, “but you didn’t paint her as homely. You gave her, with a lavish hani, all the graces and beautles that a woman could possess and—what is especially galling to me—you de- scribed her as just the opposite to me in every way. I can’t help but think that she represented your ideal.” “Now, my dear little girl, don't be foolish. Just remember that when I described her I had never met you. I made her a brunette because that seemed to fit in with her contraito voice. T'll make you a solemn promise that from this time henceforth all my heroines shall have golden hair and the deepest and truest of blue eyes. Her voice was excellent, but it was abso- lutely untrained, and I infinitely prefer to listen to your high, clear soprano than to any number of contraltos, no matter how rich and full is the quality of their voice.” “That's all very well, but you say that some of the incidents in the book had a foundation In truth. Suppose you met this woman some time?” asked Anne. A ““What difference would it make if T did? You don’t suppose that I will ever have eyes or ears for any other woman but yourself, do you? TI'll tell you just how much of the plot had a foundation in truth. “When I was il this spring I occupied a room in one of the uptown hospitals and, despite the calls of my friends, time hung very heavily on my hands, My nurse was one of those efficient machines which school and hospital training turn out, and I was ready to turn to anything for relaxation and en- tertainment. Just across the areaway from my window was an apartment house, and I used to hear some one singing there and would close my eyes and listen to the music. One day some offlmy tffl'!lldl h:ldmbrou‘lht me a mag- nificent clump o es of the valley and it occurred to me that it would b:nleo to send some of them to the girl who made the musio. I knew that it would be useless to try and enlist the services of my matter-of-fact nurse in trying to find out her name, so def another plan. I had never seen the girl, but the voice seemed to float out of a window just opposite me. “I was becoming convalescent rapidly and, casting about for something to weight the bouquet with, my eyes fell on a pair of slippers. I stuck the flow- ers in the toe of one of the slippers and hurled it across with all my force. I saw it sall in the window and then, the exertion proving too much for me, I fainted and fell on the floor by the window. I had counted on seeing the girl pick up the flowers, but I fainted too quickly. “I was removed to another room which looked out on an inner court, and I never heard the voice again. I recovered from the relapse quickly, and while I was in bed I blocked out the synopsis of my romance. The hero, as you know, I made an art student in Paris, and had him fall in love with a girl across the way on account of the girl’s voice. He threw her flowers just as I did, and they got to know each other in that way. “But both the young artist and the young singer were poor; they drifted away from Paris and lost the sight, but not the memory, of each other. Ten years later the artist, now on the top wave of success, went to hear a new opera sung by a new prima donna, of whom great things are told. The prima donna turns out to be ‘the girl at the other window.’ The artist rushes out of the opera-house, buys some lilies of the valley and a pair of slippers, sticks the flowers into the toe of one of tne slippers and hurls it on the stage. She recognizes him by the sign, ‘they marry and live happy ever after- ward. And that’s all there is to the lit- tle story which the critics jumped on me for giving such a prosalc title as ‘A Pair of Slippers,’ " “And you are sure that if you met — Hines S the girl to whom you threw the flowers you would never be tempted to try and turn your romance into reality?”” asked Anne. “I have enough romance to last me for a lifetime.” “But suppose the girl was really a very nice girl and a very pretty girl?” “Makes no difference.” “Did you know that I lived in the apartment house back of the hospital at which you were a patient?” Anne's expression was rather mischievous. “No, I didn’t. Then it is possible that you know the woman with the con- tralto voice. Do you?” “Yes, I knew her. In fact, I have the slipper and the bunch of lilies of the valley.” “How did you get them? Your voice is soprano.” Anne’s expression was distinctly mis- chievous now. In fact, she seemed to have great diffigulty in keeping from laughing outright, as she sald: “The woman you heard singing was our old negro cook whom we brought up from the South with us. I had to take the flowers and slipper off her hands to pacify her. She was going over to the hospital and raise a row on the presumption that the negro jani- tor had tried to flirt with her. I put the flowers and slipper out of her way and she finally forgot about them. and so did . When I read your book it started me to thinking, and when I met you I determineq to find out if it was really you who threw the flowers. “I think,” said Tom, slowly, “that the Joke is decidedly on me.” “Undoubtedly,” said Anne. “But If you had not have thrown the flowers you wouldn't have written the book. And if you had not written the book I would not have gone out of my way to meet you. So, ‘all is well that ends well.” ”* Jorie.” ened. It never came true. And besides, I am three years older than Marjorie. ‘Would you think I was 26, Steve?” Stephen turned the rimless eye- glasses on her with cheerful scrutiny. | “Thirty-nine,” he said pleasantly. “How long were you engaged to him?"* “Two weeks and a half.” “Last October?” She nodded her head. “It's a bad time of year for engage- gagements. Dead léaves and general dampness and all that. I always choose early summer. It don’t hang on the nerves so. Try June next time, Con.” She turned to him with sudden im- patience. “It isn’'t that I don’t want to see Marjorfe happy, or that I care about last October. I am afrald she will waken as I did. He is so perfectly colorless In temperament that it is simply infuriating. A girl doesn’t seek & new engagement every summer, Steve. I never was engaged before, and don’t you know when you've been looking forward to something ever since you could chase butterflles, to falling in love with the one man who was to be your prince of dreams, and all at once you think you've found him, and you love him and promise to be his wife, and nothing happens at all, why, you feel like the boy who spent all his Fourth of July money for or&e skyrocket, and then it wouldn't go oft.” “Better sald boy than the boy who shoots the merry rocket and then gets unmercifully batted with the fallen stick,” sald Stephen gently and philo- sophically. “Haworth was just the same. He never seemed to understand how won- derful it all was to me, or how a girl wants it to be wonderful. We were good, stanch friends and comrades, and he cared for me, I know he did, last October, but there was the rose mist missing. He wasn't my prince of dreams. He was just himself. One likes the rose mist of life, you know, even if one knows they are all fllusion. They give a glory to the path behind and the hills ahead.” “But they aren’'t worth a cent close around,” ' said Stephen. ‘‘Rose mists aren’t worth a rap floating around one’s self, when one is busy living to- day. Seems to me I wouldn't want any fllusions around the ome I loved best, either. And I don't think Marjorie would. Haworth’s a splendid old chap. ‘We've been friends for over ten years. He's given me many a hand grip over tough places in the first days when I was only a fresh kid fighting for a place in the crowd, and he’s always the same. It may be monotonous, but it mighty comforting. Perhaps after ten years even you might be glad to find a man unchanged.” : “Perhaps.” She smiled bitterly, but bravely still. He looked Into her eyes interestadly. ‘‘Honest, don't you care, Con?" She hesitated. “Not as long as it is Marjorie, and she will be happy.” Her volce was low. “Of course one may still remember the prince of dreams, when the dreams never came true.” “Haworth was up to my place last night and we talked sense. No rose mists or dreams, just plain sense. And I told him that I was going to marry the dearest girl in the world, if she’d have me."™ ‘Stephen!” Her face was radiant, her tone tender and maternal in its quick sympathy. “I'm so glad for “If she’d have me,” repeated Stephen modestly. “And Haworth opened up and told me a few things about a cer- tain dearest girl whom he had wanted to marry, but she wouldn’t have him. He wasn’t bitter, you understand, or wearing crape for any dead hopes. He just told me. He doesn’t quite under- stand why she gave him up, but he believes she loved him, and that some *day the world will seem lonesome and strange to her, and the rose mists she cared for will have faded. Then he thinks she may be glad to find him unchanged.” “Stephen!” She turned her head and met Haworth’'s gaze. His eyes were restful and steady, as she had loved best to remember them. “And I told him,” continued Stephen mildly, “not to wait for the lonesome time, to take the day he was sure of. And he said he thought he'd try to- night.” “But Marjorie!” Her face flushed and her lips half parted. She was still looking beyond the yellow chrysanthemums. Stephen smiled across the table. “The dearest girl in the world sald yes just half an hour ago,” he said.