The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 31, 1904, Page 2

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. of the surprising really good books past season those that made e a year Or more the rkington, er, be better s the fact that is said tosbe yvel ever writ- d young au- Beaucaire From Indi- g story, and e demand Call, f erary policy of giv- best very ne in for stallments— never before equaled “The Two Van- nnot be secured any- a other form for | five times what it will 1 in the Sunday Call. | Copyright by McClure, Phillips & Co. . CHAPTER L A CAT CAN DO MORE THAN LOOK AT A KING. I was Jong ago in the days when I men sighed when they fell in love; when people danced by candle and lamp, and did dance, too, instead of solemnly gliding about; in that mellow time #0 long ago, when the young were romantic and summer was roses and wine, old Carewe brought his lovely daughter home from the convent to wreck the hearts of the youth of Rouen. That t a f@r journey; only an afternoon’s drive through woods in an April long ago; harp carefully strapped the ty's e great lumbering carriage, r on the front seat, haif- a mound of bouquets and 1 little bundles. farewell rades and the good sis- ft hand she clutched a ndkerchief, with which she T n touched her eyes, - me h the parting from Bi Mary Bazilede, the_old = 1 the girls; but for she li#ed the dainty away the edge of a breath of the 4 air and smiled at years of strict in- Mary's walls and hed and done with y-colored world ystery before iant to the it contained men; old it town after sunset, i the dogs barking and every one would have ow that Tom Van- Crailey Gray, was By the merest ac- strolling near the the time; and when wWung into the gates, with and clouds of dust at t too soon lost he- and trees for Tom mething more than a glimpse £kirt behind a mound of flow- a of a charming face with parted s and Aark s beneath the scuttle Tmous bonnet. It happened— t re accurate to say that t happened—that she wag 7 her veil when he She blushed suddenly, be mistaken: and were remarkable the sheer love- even in the one ep ace at age flash of them he caught, they meant so any things at one time. They were sparkling, yet mournful; and they were although undeniably lively yest comprehension of the nt of their glance, seeming to , it's you, young man, is it!” were shy and mysterious . full of that wonder at the world which has the appearance, some- =s.¥of wisdom gathered in the un- known out of which we came. But, these eyes were fully con- scious of Tora Vanrevel. above all Without realizing what he did, Mr. Vanrevel stopped short. He had been ewinging a walking-stick, which, de- scriling & brief arc, remained poised h Say ite descent. There was only “that one glance between them; and the carriage disappeared, leaving e scent of spring flowers in the air. The young man was left standing on the vumd»,n pavement in the midst of a grezt loneliness, yet enveloped in the efterglow, his soul roseate, his being quavering, his expression, like his cane, instgntaneously arrested. With such promptitulle and finish was he disposed of that had Miss Carewe been awareof his name.and the condition wrought in him by the single stroke, she could have ught on'7 the terse Richard of Eng- nd for a like executive ability, “@ff h his head! So much for Vanre- vel!" She had lifted a slender hand to the ring veil, a hand in a white glove h a small lace gauntlet at the wrist. This gesture was the final divinity of the radiant vision which remained with the dagzed young man as he went down the street: and it mey have been three- quarters of an hour later when the backgro of the picture became vivid fo him; a carefully dressed gentieman with heavy brows and a handsome high mose, who sat stiffly upright be- side the girl. his very bright eyes quite as cious of the stricken pedestrian as were hers, vastly different, however, in this; that they glittered, nay, almost bristied, with hostilit while every Po ed button of his blue coat seemed to reflect their malignancy, and to dart echoing shafts of venom at M. evel Hitle ym was dismaved by the acuteness of his perception that a man who does v 2k to you has no right to have # daveghier like the lady in the carriage, snd. the mement of this realization oc- c t rring as he sat making & poor pre- nse to eat his evening meal at the “Rouen House,” he dropped his fork ling upon his plate and leaned back g 2t nothing, a proceeding of his table-mate, Mr. William ings, the editor of the Rouen too bugy over his river take note, you heard what's new in sked Cummings presently, No,” said Tow ntully, for he had seen what was new, but not heard it. “Old Carewe’s brought his daughter home. Fanchon Bareaud was with her at St. Mary's until last year; and Fanchon says she's not only a great beauty but a great dear.” “Ah!" rejoined the other with mas- terly I indiYerence, “Dare \say—dare No wonder you're not interested,” said Cummings cheerfully, returning te the discussion of his bass. “The old villain will take precious good care you don’t come near her.” Mr. Vanrevel already possessed a pro- found conviction to the same effect. Robert Meilhac Carewe was known not only as the weaithiest citizen of Rouen, but also as its heartiest and most stead- fast hater; and, although there were only five or six thousand inhabitants, neither was a small dfstinction. For Rouen was ranked, in those easy days, as a wealthy town; even as it was led an old town: proud of its age and its riches, and bitter in its politics, of course. The French had built a fort there, soon after LaSalle’s last voy- age, and. as Crailey Gray said, had settled the place and had then been set- tled themselves by the pioneer militia. After the Revolution, Carolinians and Wirginians had come, by way of Ten- nessee and Kentycky; while the adven- turous countrymen from Connecticut, traveling thither to ‘sell, remained to buy—and then sell—when the country was in its teens. In course of time the little trading-post of the Northwest Territory had grown to be the leading center of elegance and culture in the Ohio Valley—at least they said so in Rouen: only a few people in the coun- try, such as Mr. Irving of Tarrytown, for instance, questioning whether a center could lead The pivotal figure, though perhaps not the heart. of this center, was un- questionably Mr. Carewe, and about him the neat and tight aristocracy of the place rev the old French remnant, liberally intermarried, forming the nucleus, together with de- scendants of the Cavaliers (and those who said they were) and the industri- ous Yankees, by virtue (if not by the virtues) of all whom the town grew and prospered. Robert Carewe was Rouen's magnate, commercially and socially, and, until an upstart young lawyer named Vanrevel struck into his power with a broad-ax, politically. The wharves were Carewe’s; the ware- houses that stood by the river, and the line of packets W upon_it, were his; half the town was his, an’ip Iv Rouen this meant that he was posc gessed of the Middle Justice, the higly and the low. His mother was & French woman, and, in those days, when to go abroad was a ponderous and venturesome undertaking, the fact that he had spent most of his youth in the French capital Wwrought a certain glamor about him; for to the American, Paris was Europe, and it lay shimmer- ing on the far horizon of every imagl- nation, a golden city. Scarce a draw- ing-room in Rcuen lacked its fearsome engraving entitled “Grand Ball at the Tuileries,” nor was Godey's Magazine ever more popular than when it con- tained articles elaborate of similar scenes of festal light, where brilllant uniforms mingled with shining jewels, fair locks, and .the whité shoulders of magnificently dressed duchesses, coun- tesses, and ladies. (Credit for this de- ecription should be given entirely to the above mentioned periodical) Further- more. a sojourn in Paris was heid to confer a “certain nameless and in- describable polish” upon the manners of the visitor. also, there was some- thing called “an air of foreign travel.” They talked a great deal about polish in those days; and some examples still extant do not deny their justification; but in the case of Mr. Carewe, there ex- isted a citizen of Rouen, one aiready quoted, who had the temerity to de- clare the polish to be in fruth quite nomeless and indescribable for the rea- son that one cannot paint a vicuum However, subscription to this opinion should not be over-hasty, - since Mr. Crailey Gray had been notoriously a rival of Carewe’'s with every pretty woman in town, both having the same eye in such matters, and also because the slandered gentleman could assume a manner when he chose to, whether or not he possessed it. At his own table he exhaled a hospitable graciousness which, from a man of known evil tem- per, carried. the winsomeness of sur- prise. When he wooed, it was with an air of stately devotion. combined with that knowingness which sometimes off- s for a widower the tendency a girl has to giggle at him; and the combina- tion had been, once or.twice, too much for even the alluring Crailey, Mr, Garewe lived in an old-fashioned house on the broad, quiet, shady street which bore his name. There was a wide lawn in front, shadowy under elm and locust trees, and bounded by thick shrubberies. A long gard n. fair with roses and hollyhocks, lay outside the library windows, an old-time garden, with fine gravel paths and green ar- 1ors: drowsed over in summer time by the bees, while overhead the locust rasped his rusty cadences the livelong day; and a faraway sounding love note from the high brancheg brought to mind the line, like an old refrain: 'The voice of the turtle was heard in the land. Between the garden and the carriage gates there was a fountain where a bronze boy with the dropsy (but not minding it) lived in a perpetual bath from & green goblet held over his head. Nearby, a stone sun dial gleamed against a clgmp of lilac bushes; and it was upon “this spot that the wWhite kitten introduced Thomas Vanrevel to Miss Carewe. Upon the morning after her arrival, having finished her pianoforte prac- tice, tonched her harp tywice, and ar- peggioed the Spanish Fandango on her guitar, Miss Betty read two paragraphs of Gilbert (for she was profoundly de- termined to pursue her task with, dili- gence), but the open windows disclos- ing a world all sunshine and green leaves, she threw the book aside with a good conscience, and danced out to the garden. . There, coming upon a fuzzy, white ball rolling into itself spir- ally on a lazy pathway, she pounced at it, whereupon the thing uncurled with lightning swiftness, and fled, more-ilke a streak than a kitten, down the drive, through the .ofifn gate. and into the street, Miss Béfty ih full ‘ery." Across the Way there chanced to be strolling a young lady in blue, ' panied by a gentleman whose lefsurely gait ga no indication of the ma- neuvering he had done to hasten their walk into its present direction. He was apparently thirty or thirty-one, tall, very straight, dark, smooth shaven his eves keen, deep set and. thought- ful, and his high white hat, white satin cravat and careful collar were evi- dence of an elaboration of tollet some- what unusuval in Rouen for the morn- ing; also, he was carrying a pair of white gloves in his hand and dangled a slender ebony cane from his wrist. The flying Kitten headed toward the couple, when, with a celerity only to be accounted for on the theory that his eve huad been fixed on.the Carewe gate- way for some time previous to this sudden apparition, the gentleman leaped in front of the fugitive, The kitten attempted a dodge to pass; the gentleman was there before it. The kitten feinted; the gentleman was al- together too much on the spot. Imme- diately—and just as Miss . Carews, flushed and glowing, ran into the street —they,small animal doubled, evaded Miss Betty's frantic clutch, re-entered the gateway, and attempted a disap- pearance Into the lilac bushes, Instead of going round them, only t6 find it- self, for a fatal two seconds, in diffi- culties with the close-set thicket of stems, £ In regard to the extraordinary agility of which the pursuing gentleman was capable, it is enough to say that he caught* the cat. He emerged from the lilacs holding it in one hand, his gloves and white hat in the other, and pre- sented himself before Miss Betty with a breathlessness not entirely attributable to his” exttrtions. For a moment, as she came running toward him and he met her flashing look, bright with laughter and recogni- tion and haste, he stammered. A thrill nothing less than delirious sent the biood up behind his brown cheeks, for he saw that she, too, knew that this was the second time thelr eyes had met. Naturally, at that time he could not know how many other gentlemen were to feel that same thrill (in their cases. also, delirious, no lese) with the same, accompanying, mysterious feeling which came just before Miss Betty's lashes fell, that one had found, at last, a precious thing, lest long since in childhood, or left, perhaps, upon some other planet in a life ten thousand years ago. He could not speak at once, but when he could, “Permit me, madam,"” he said, solemmly, offering the captive, * to re- store your kitten,” ! An agitated kitten should no. be de- tained by clasping its waist, and al- ready the conqueror was paying for his vistory. There ensued a final, outra- geous souirm of despair; two frantic claws, mark across the stranger’'s wrist, and another down the back of _is hand to the knuckles. They were gyod, hearty scratches, and the blood f§llowed the artist's lines rapidly; but H)f this the young man took no note, thr he knew that he was about to ! hear Miss Cayewe’s voice for, the first *time. >, “They say the best way to hold them,” he observed, “is by the scruff of the neck.” Behclding his wounds, suffered in her cause, she gave a pitying cry that made his heart leap with the richness and sweetness of it. Catching the Kkitten from him, she ‘dropped it to the ground in such wise as to prove nature's fore- e extended, Adrew oj.e long red’ sight most kind in cushioning the feet .of cats. “Ah! I didn’t want it that much!” “A cat In the hand s worth two nightingales in the bush,” he said boldly, and laughed. “I would shed more blood than that!" Miss Betty blushed like a southern dawn, and started. back frem him. From the convent but yesterday—and ehe had taken a man’s hand in both of hers! It was to this tableau that the lady in blue entered, following the hunt through the gates,” where she stopped with a discomposed countenance. At once, however, she advanced, and with a cry of greeting, envelcped Miss Betty in a brief embrace, to the relief of the latter's confusion. It was Fanchon Bareaud. now two years emancipated from St. Mary’s, and far gone in taf- feta. With her lusterful light hair. ab- sent blue eyes, and her gentle voice, as small and pretty as her face and figure, it was not too difficult to justify Cral- ley Gray’s characterization of her as one of those winsome. baggages who had made an air of feminine helpless- ness the fashion of the day. It is a wicked thing that Some women should kiss when a mén is by; in the present instance the gentleman became somewhat faint. + “I'm so glad—glad!" exclaimed Betty. “Yoy were just coming to see me, weren’t you? My father is in the li- brary. Let me—" Miss Bareaud drew back. “No, no!” she interrupted hastily and with ebi- dent perturbation. “I—we must be on our wav immediately.” Shé threw a glance at the gentieman, which let him know that she now comprehended his gloves, and why their stroll had trended toward Carewe street, “Come at once!" she commanded him quickly, in an undértone. “But now that you're here,” said Miss Betty, wondering very miuch why he was not presented to her, “won't you wait and let me gather a nosegay for you? Our pansies and violets—" “I could help,” the gentleman sug- gested, with the lock of a lame dog at Migs Bareaud. “I have been considered useful about a garden.” “Fool!” Betty did not hear the word that came from Miss Bareaud's closed teeth, although she was mightily sur- prised at the visible agitation of her schoolmate, for the latter's face was pale and excited. And Miss Carewe's amazement was complete when Fan- chon, without more words, cavallerly seized the gentleman’s arm and moved toward the street with him as rapidly as his perceptible reluctance to leave permitted. But at ®he gate Miss Ba- reaud- turned and calleé back over her shoulder, as if remembering the necessity of offering an excuse for so remarkable a proceeding: “I ghall come again.very goon. Just now we are upon an errand of great impertance, Good- Migs Betty waved her hand. staring after them, her eyes large with wonder. She compressed her ‘lips tightly: “Er- rand!” This was the friend of child- hood’s happy hour, and they had not met in two years' s “Errand!” She ran to the hedge, along the top of which a high white hat was now seen perambulating; she (& 2 Ppressea down a loose branch, and called in a tender voice to 1he stranger whom Fanchen' had chosen shouid remain nameless: “Be sure to put some salve on your He made a’ bow which just missed being too low, but did miss it. “It is there—already,” he said; and, losing his courage after the bow, made his speech with so palpable a gasp be- fore the last word that the dullest per-. £an in the world could have seen that he meant it. Miss Betty disappeared. There was a rigidity of expression about the gentle mouth of Fanchon Bareand. which her companion did not endoy, as they went on their way. each preserving an uneasy silence, until at her own door, she turned sharply upon him. =~ “Tom Vanrevel,. | thought you were the steadiest—and now you've proved vourself the craziest—sou! in Rouen!" she burst out. “And I couldn’'t say worse!” “Why didn’t you present me to her?” seked Vanvevel,, “Because I thought a man of your gallantry might prefer nat to face a "“’,‘,‘“"B,.“‘ the presence of ladies!”, - “Pooh!"” ‘Pooh!” mimicked Miss Rareaud. “You can ‘pooh’ as much as ycu like, but if he had seen us from the window -** She covered her face with her bunds for a moment, then dropped them and smiled upon him. *“I understand perfectly to what I owe the pleasure of _ day a stroll with you this morning, and your casual insistence on the shadi- ness of Carewe street!” He laughed nervously, but her smilt vanished, and she continued, “Keep ayway, Tom. She is beautiful, and at St. Mary's I always thought she had spirit and wit, too. I only hope Crailey won't see her before the wedding! But it isn't safe for you. Go along, now, and ask Crailey please to come at three this afternoon.” This message from Mr. Gray's be- trothed was all the one ill-starred Tom conveyed to his friend. Mr, Vanrevel was ordinarily esteemed a person of great reserve and discretion; neverthe- less there was one man to whom he told evefything, and from whom he had no secrets. ble attempts to describe to Cralley Gray the outward appearance of Miss Elizabeth Carewe; how she ran like a young Diana; what one felt upon hear- ing her voice; and he presented in him- self an example exhibiting something of the cost of looking into her eyes. His conversation was more or less incoher- ent, but the effect of it was complete. 5 . CHAPTER IL SUBRVIVING EVILS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR. Does there exist an incredulous, or jealous, denizen of anothér portion of our country who, knowing that the room in the wooden cupola over Mr. Carewe’s library ‘was commonly alluded to by Rouen as the “Tower Chamber," will prove himseif so sectionally preju- diced as to deny that the town was a veritable hotbed of literary interest, or that Eir Walter Scott was ill-appreci- ated there? Some of the men looked sly, and others grinned, at mention of this apartment: but the romantic were not lacking who spoke of it in whispers; how the lights sometimes shone there all night long, and the gentlemen drove away, white faced, in the dawn. The cupola, riging above the library, over- looked the garden, and the Louse, save for that. was of a single story, with a low veranda running the length of it§ front. The windows of the library and of a row of bedrooms—one of which was Miss Betty's—lined the veranda, “steamboat fashion:” the inner doors of these rooms all opening upon a long hall which bisected thg house. The stairway leading to the room in the cu- pola rose In the library itseif, whila the bisecting hall afforded the only access to the library: hence, the gossips, wal acquainted with the geography of the place, conferred Seriously together upon what effect Miss Betty's homecoming would have in this connection: for any one going to the stairway must needs pass her door: and, what was more to the puint, a party of gentlemen de- scending late from the mysterions tur- ret might be not so quiet as they in- tended, and the young lady sufficiently disturbed io inquire of her father what entertainment he provided that should keep his guests until four in the morc- ing. < But at present it was with the oppo- site end of the house that the town was occupied. for there, workmen were hammering and sawing and painting all ay long, finishing the addition Mr. Carewe was building for his daughter's debut. This hammering. disturbed Miss He spent the noon hour in fee-. evels v x4 BN HRUNGTO—— olution as with or she had found Betty, who had b the Freng mantua- her father" maker. library many bodks nat for convent s and she had Become 2 Girondin. z She found memoiry, histaries and tales of that -table period, thén not so dim with time but that the figures of it were more than tragle: shadows and Tor a week thers was.no mea! that house to which §he sat earlier than half an bolif late. She had a rightful property-idterest in the Rev olution, her own gredt-uncle having been one of those who “suffered:” not however, under the gufllofine; for to ‘Gedrges Meilhac appertained the rare distinction of death by accident on the day when . the business-like young Bonaparte played upon the mob with his cannon. There were some yellow. letters of this great-uncle’s in a box which had be- longed to her grandmother, a rich dis- covery for Miss Betty, who read and re-read them with eager and excited father. Indeed, she had little else to do. Mr. Carews was no comrade for her, by far the reverse. She ssldom saw him, except at the, table, when sat with averted eyes, nn_d,\glod to her very little; and, while '3 ’Il.b-_ orate preparation for her introductiom to his friends (such was his phrase), he treated her with a perfunctory civ- ility which made her wonder if her ad- vent was altogether welcome to him; but when' she noticed that his halr looked darker than usual about every fourth day, she began to understand why he appeared ungrateful o her for growing up. He went out a great deal, though no visitors came to the house; for it was known that Mr. Carewe ds-° sired 1o present his daughter to no one until he presented her to all. Fanchon Bareaud, indeed, made bne hurried and embarrassed call, evading Miss Batty's reference to the chevaller of the kitten with a dexterity too ‘mimble to be €hought unintentional. Miss Carewe was forbidden to return her friend's visit until after her debut; and Mr. Carewe explained that there was al- ways some worthless young men hang- ing about the Bareauds’, where (he did rot add) they intéerfered with a ‘worthy old one who desired to honor Fanchon's older sister, Virginia, with his atten- tions, This was no great hardship for Miss ‘Betty, as since plunging into the Revo- lution with her great-unecle, she had lost some curiosity concerning the men of to-day, doubting that they would show forth as hercic, as debonnair, gay and tragic as he. He was the legen- dary hero of her childhood; she remem- bered her mother's stories of him pe:- haps more clearly than she’ remem- bered her-mother; and on€ of the oider sisters had known him n Parls 4 had talked of him at length, giving the flavor of his dandyism and his beauty at fist haind to his'young relative. He had been one of those hardy Yyouns men wearing unbelievable garments, who began to appear in the garden of the Tufleries with- knives in their sleeves and cudgels in their hands, about April, 1794, and whose dash and recklessness in many matters wers the first intimations that the Citizen Tal- llen was about to cause the "Citizen Robespierre to shoot himself through the jaw. s In the library hung a small, full- length drawing of Georges, Wone in color by Miss Betty's grandmether; and this she carried to her own reom and studied long and ardently, until sometimes the man himself seemed to stand before her, in spite of the faoct that Mille. Metlhac had not a distin- guished talent and M.: Metlhac's fea- tures might have been anybody’s. - It was to be seen, however, that he was smiling. Miss Betty had an {mpression that her grandmother’s art of portraiturs would have been more successful with the profile than the “full-face.” Never- theless, nothing could be more eclearly indicated than that the hair of M. Meil- hac was very yellow, and his short. huge-lapelled waistcoat, striped .with scarlet. An enormous cravat coversd his chin; the heavy collar of his yellow coat rose behind his ears, while its talls fell to his ankles; and the tight trou- sers of white and yellow stripes were tied with white ribbons about the mid- dle of the calf; he wore white stoekings and gold-buckled yellow shoes, aid on the back of his head a jauntily eocked black hat. Miss Betty Innocently won- dered why his letters did not speak -f Petion; of Vergniaud, or of J since in the historical novels which she read the hero's. lot was inevitably linked with that of every one of impor- tance in his generation; ' yet Georges appeared to have been unacquainted with these personages, Robespierre be- ing the only name of consequence men- tioned in. his letters; and then it ap- peared in much the same fashion pracs tised by her father in aliuling to the Governor of the State. who had. the misfortune to be unpopular with Mr. Carewe. But this did not dim her great-uffele’s luster in Miss. Betty's eyes, nor lassen for her the -pathetic romance of the smile he wore. Peholding this smile, one remembered the end to which his light footsteps had led him, and it was unaveidable to plcture bim left lying in the empty street behind the heels of the flying crowd, carefully forming that same smile on his lips and taking mueh. pride in passing with one small, eynical speech, murmired to himself, concerp- ing the inutility of a gentleman's get- ting shot by his friends for merely be- ing present to applaud them. Seo, fan- cying him thus. with his yellow bair, hig scarlet-striped waistcoat and his tragedy, the young girl felt a share of family greatmess. or at least of pic- turesqueness, descend to her. And she smiled sadly back upon the smile in the picture and dreamed about its orig- inal night after night. ¥ Whether or not another figure, that of a’dark young man In a white hat, with a white kitten etching his wrist in red, found any place in her dreams at this perfod it is impossible to déter- mine, She did fiot see him in. 1t ig quite another thing, hazardous to veq- ture, to state that he did not see hef. At all events, it is certain_that many_ people who had neveér behield her were talkflig of her; that Rouen waa full of Dumouries,. . .