The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 7, 1904, Page 3

\ THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL cile, at the top of his lungs, only to find himself t e he trie fMed because the dy’s orbs (as ght have said) usly near his m, for, though t end was far nevertheless, was nswered at last, because it | ou see: n introduced v you never will be, me was true.” hat I told you?” ed from him instan- the others might come when could not.” s expression altered shoulders have Who th my your father!” he lit with an aight- asked eagerly My father Mr. Vanrevel whom I must bering what you that you were b Oh!" Crafley’s lips began to form a smile of suc nimitable sweet- ness that Voltaire would have trusted him: a smile altogether rose leaves. “Ther 1 Jose you,” he said, “for my y chance to know you was in keep- it hidden from you. Ar w you No,” ghe answered “I don't understand; t ibles me., 17 1 asd ar sin t you & take me home now the right ieve it no >, should not to act from of things." The g man set his expression as ably fixed upon the course st what it might; and, in n, his lurking pleasure in ed out in the flicker of a and as instantly in ene indon of honor, the very acti doing it hopi cover again—the flea you must usk some other,” he “A disinterested person vou. The difference was the begimming, but became afterward; and it is now a 1 which can never be patched up, though, for my part, 1 wish that it could be ¥y no more, because & an s 2 to it shou ot speak.” She met his lev look squarely at last: and no ever had a more truthful pair of eyes than Crailey Gray, for it was his great accomplishment that he could adiust his emotion, his something that might be to fit any situation in charscter You mav take me home,” she an- any red. al; “I may be wrong, and even but T do not feel it so mow. & very brave thing to-night to him from Joss, and T think that you have said was just what you uld have said.” So ghev went down the street, the hubbub and confusion of the fire grow- ing more and more indistinct behind them. They walked slowly, and, for a time, neither spoke; yet the silence was of a kind which the adept rejoiced to have produced thus soon—thelr sec- ond meeting. For he believed there were more strange things in heaven and earth than Horatio wot; and one f the strangest was that whenever he an attractive woman during silence such as this, something defined, but as effective as it te, always went out from er. It was like a word of ten- rness, a2 word too gentle, too compell- £. too sweet. to be part of any tongue, en or written. And more, this in- ble word had an echo, and came him from the woman. s his partner had in dress, so Crai- d with women, scme color of the t t in what experi- him (o recoguize as a were apt to fall in love hat they were apt to re- with him— he understood be nother matter.) Arnd hey were doing 1t; couid accurately, at each ey were feeling. thinking, during the process, because exhibiting the same mself at the same time. Thus. his own breast occupied with that zzy elation which followed reception of the insane young god's ar- rows, and his heart warm with the rise of the old emotion that he knew so was nevertheless able to walk finger on the pulse of the ex- symptoms to h T o O quisite moment her heart-beats his own. So, to his fancy, as they walked, the little space between them hung with brilliant strands, like gossamer chains of gold, already linking them together; every second ng another slender, precious fetter, binding them closer, drawing her nearer. He waited until they passed into the shadows of the de- serted Carewe street before he spoke. There he abruptly stopped; at which ehe turned, astonished. ow that you have saved my life.” id, tremulous tone, “what are you going to do with it?” Her eyes opened almost as Widely as they had at her first sight of him in her garden. There was a long pause before she replied, and when she did, it was to his considerable surprise. “I have never seen a play, except the funny little ones we acted at the con- vent,” she said. “but isn't that the way they speak on the stage?” Crailey realized that his judgment of the silence had been mistaken, and vet it was with a thrill of delight that he in a low, recognized her clear reading of him. He had been too florid again. “Let us go.” His voice was soft with restrained forgi ess. “You mocked me once before. “Mocked you?” she repeated, as they went on. “Mocked me,” he said. firmly. “Mocked me for seeming theatrical, and yet you have learned that what I sald was true, as you will again.” “Well, tell me what you mean when you say I saved your life.” “You came alone,” he began, hastily, “to stand upon that burning roof—" Whence all but him had fled!” Her laughter rang out, interrupting him. “My room was on the fourth floor at St. Ma: and 1 didn’t mind climbing three flights this evening.” Crailey’s good-nature was always perfect. “You mock me and you mock he cried, and made her laughter part of a gay duet. “I know I have too fast, have said things I should have waited to say; but. ah! remem- ber the small chance I have against the others who can see you when they like. Don’t flout me because I try to make the most of a rare, stolen moment with you.” “Do!” she exclaimed, grave upon the instant. “Do make the most of it! I have nothing but inexperience. Make the most by treating me seriously. ‘Won't you? I Know you cam, and I— 1—" She faltered to a full stop. She was earnest and quiet, and there had been something in her tone, too—as very often there was—that showed how young she was. “Oh!” she began again, turning to him impulsively, “I have thought about you since that evening in the garden, and I have wished to know you. I can’t be quite clear how it happened, but even those few minutes left a number of strong impressions about you. And the strong- est was that you were one with whom I could talk of a great many things, if you would only be real with me. I be- lieve—though I'm not sure why I do— that it is very difficult for you to be real; perhaps because you are so differ- ent at different times that you aren't sure, yourself. which the real vou is. But the person that you are beginning to be for my benefit must be the most trifiing of all vour selves, lighter and easier to put on than the little mask you carried the other night. If there were nothing better beneath the mask, I might play, too.” “Did you learn this at the convent?” gasped Crailey. “There was a world there in minia- ture,” she answered, speaking very quickly. “I think all people are made of the same material, only in such dif- ferent proportions. I think a litle world might hold as much as the larg- est, if you thought it all out hard enough, and your experience might be just as broad and deep in a small cor- ner of the earth as anywhere else. But I don’'t know! I want to understand—I want to understand everything! I read books, and there are people—but no one who tells me what T want —I—" “Stop.” He lifted his hand. "I won't act: I shall never ‘play’ for you again.” He was breathle: the witching silence was nothing to what stirred him now. A singular exaltation rose in him, to- gether with the reckless impulse to speak from the mood her vehement confidence had inspired. He gave way to it. “1 know. “I understand all feel, all you wish. here, and here, and here!” He touched his breast, his eves and his forehead with the fingers of his long and slender hand. ‘“We sigh and strain our eves and stretch out our arms in the dark, groping always for the strange blessing that is just beyond our grasp, seeking for the precious un- known that lfes just over the horizon! It’s what they meant by the pot of gold where the rainbow ends—only, it may be there, after all!” They stopped unconsciously, and re- mained standing at the lower end of the Carewe hedge. The western glow had faded, and she was gazing at him through the darkness, leaning forward, never dreaming that her tight grasp had broken the sticks of the little pink 1 know,” he said huskily. you mean, all you It is all echoing she whispered, eagerly. “You are right; you understand!” He went on, the words coming faster and faster: “We are haunted—you.and I—by the wish to know all things, and by the question that lies under every thought we have: the agonizing Whith- er? Isn't it like that? It is really death that makes us think. You are a good Catholic; you go to mass; but you wish to know. Does God reign, or did it all happen? Sometimes it seems so deadly probable that the universe just was, no God to plan it, nothing but things; that we die as sparrows die, and the brain is all the soul we have, a thing that becomes clogged and stops some day. And is that ali?” She shivered slightly, but her stead- fast eyes did not shift from him. He threw back his head, and his face up- lifted to the jeweled sky of the moon- less night., was beatific in its peaceful- ness, as he continued in an altered tone, gentle and low: “I think all questions are answered there. The stars tell it all. When you look at them you know. They have put them on our flag. There are times when this seems but a poor nation; boastful, corrupt, violent, and prepar- ing, as it is now, to st2al another coun- try by fraud and war; yet the stars on the flag always make me happy and confident. Do you see the constella- tions swinging above us, such unimag- inaple vastnesses, not roving or crash- ing through the illimitable at haphaz- ard, but moving in more excellent measure and to a finer rhythm. than the most delicate clockwark man ever made? The great ocean-lines mark our seas with their paths through the water; the fine brains of the earth are behind the ships that sail from port to port, yet how awry the system goes! When does a ship come to her harbor at an hour determined when she sailed? What is a ship beside the smallest moon of the ' smallest world? But, there above us, moons, worlds, suns, all the infinite cluster of colossi, move into place to the exactness of a hair at the precise instant. That instant has been planned, you see; it is part of a system —and can a system exist that no mind made? Think of the mind that made this one! Do you believe so inconceiv- ably majestic an intelligence as that could be anything but good? Ah, when you wonder, look above yo6u; look above you in the night, I say,” he cried, his hand upraised like his transfigured face. “Look above you and you will never fear that a sparrow’s faill could g0 unmarked!” It was not to the stars that she looked, but to the orator, as long as he held that pose, which lasted until a hard-ridden horse came galioping down the street. As it dashed by, though the rider looked meither to right nor left, Miss Betty unconsciously made a fev- erish clutch at her companion’s sleeve, drawing him closer to the hedge. “It is my father,” she said hurriedly in a low voice. “He must not see you. You must never come here. Per- haps—" She paused, then quickly whispered: “You have been very kind to me. Good-night.” ,He looked at her keenly, and through the dimness saw that her face was shining with excitement. He did not speak again, but, taking a step back- ward, smiled faintly, bent his head in humble acquiescence, and made ‘a slight gesture of his hand for her to leave him. She set her eyes upon his once more, then turned swiftly and al- most ran along the hedge to the gate; but there she stopped and looked back. He was standing where she had left him, his face again uplifted to the sky. She waved him an uncertain farewell, and ran into the garden, both palms against her burning cheeks. Night is the great necromancer, and strange are the fabrics he weaves; he lays queer spells; breathes so eerie an intoxication through the dusk; he can cast such glamours about a voice! He is the very king of fairyland. Miss Betty began to walk rapidly up and down the garden paths, her head bent and her hands still pressed to her cheeks; now and then an unconscidus exclamation burst from her, incoherent, more like a gasp than a word. A long time she paced the vigil with her stir- ring heart, her skirts sweeping the dew from the leaning flowers. Her lips moved often, but only the confused, ve- hement “Oh, oh!” came “rom them,un- til at last she paused in the middle of the garden, away from the trees, where all was oven to the sparkling firma- ment, and extended her arms over her head. : “Oh, strange teacher,” she said aloud, “I take your beautiful stars! know how te learn from them!™ Ehe gased steadily upward, earapt, Rer eyes resplendent with thelr owa starlight. In the teeth of all wizardry, night's spelis-do pass at sunrise; marvelous poems sink to doggerel, mighty dreams to blown ashes and solids regain weight. Miss Betty, waking at day- break, saw the motes dancing in the sun at her window, and watched them with a placid, unremembering eye. She began to stare at them in a puzzled way, while a look of wonder slowly spread over her face. Suddenly she sat upright, as though something had startled her. Her fingers clenched tightly. “Ah, if that was playing!"” CHAPTER VIIL A TALE OF A POLITICAL DIFFER- ENCE. Mr. Carewe was already at the break- fast-table, but the light of his counte- nance, hidden behind the Rouen Jour- nal, was not vouchsafed to his daugh- ter when she took her place opposite him, nor did he see fit to return her morning greeting, from which she gen- erously concluded that the burning of the two warehouses had meant a severe loss to him. “I am so sorry, father,” she said gently. (She had not called him “papa” since the morning after her ball) “I hope it isn't to be a great trouble to you.” There was no response, and, after waiting for some time, she spoke again, rather tremulously, yet not tim- idly: “Father?” He rose, and upon his brow were marked the blackest lines of anger she had ever seen, so that she leaned back from him, startled; but he threw down the open paper before her on the table, and struck it with his clenched fist. “Read that!"” he said. And he stood over her while she read. There were some grandiloquent head- lines: “Miss Elizabeth Carewe an An- gel of Mercy! Charming Belle Saves the Lives .f Five Promine: = Titizens! Her Presence of Mind Prevents Confla- gration From Wiping out the City!” It may be noted that Will Cummings, editor and proprietor of the Journal, had written these tributes, as well as the whole account of the (vening’'s transactions, ard Miss Betty loomed as large in Will’s narrative as in his good and lovelorn heart. There was very little concernirg the fire in the Journal; it was nearly all about Betty. That is one of the misfortunes which pursue a lady who allows an editor to fall in love with her. However, there was a scant mention of the arrival of the Volunteers “upon the scene” (though none at all at the cause of their delay), and an eloquent paragraph was devoted to their hand- some appearance, Mr. Cummings hav- ing been one of those who insisted that the new uniforms should be worn. “Soon,” said t he Journal, “through the daring of the chief of the department, and the captain of the hook-and-ladder company, one of whom ‘placed and mounted the grappling-ladder, over which he was immediately followed by the other carrying the hose, a stream was sent to play upon the devouring element, a feat of derring-do person- ally witnessed by a majority of our readers. Mr. Vanrevel and Mr. Gray were joined by Eugene Madrillon, Tap- pingham Marsh and the editor of this paper, after which occurred the unfor- tunate accident tc the long ladder, leaving the five named- gentlemen in their terrible predicament, face to face with death in its most awful form. At this frightful moment”—and all the rest was about Miss Carewe. As Will himself admitted, he had “laid himself out on that description.” One paragraph was composed of short sentences, each beginning with the word “alone.” “Alone she entered the shattered door! Alone she set foot up- on the first flight of stairs! Alone she ascended the second! Alone she mount- ed the third. Alone she lifted her hand to the trap! Alone she opened it!” She was declared to have made her appear- ance to the unforturate prisoners on the roof, even as “the palm-laden dove to the despairing Noah.” and Will also as- serted repeatedly that she was the “Heroine of the THour.” M Miss Betty blushed to see her name so blazoned forth in print: but she lacked one kind of vaaity, and failed to find good reason for miore than a somewhat troubled laughter, the writer's purpose was so manifestly kind in spite of the bizarre resuit. “Oh, I wishJfr. Cummings hadn’t! she exclaimed: “It would have been better not to spéak of me at all, of course; but I can't sée that there is anything to resent=it'is so funny!" “Funny!” Mr. Carewe repeated word in a cracked falsetto, with the evident intention of mocking her, and at the same time hideously contorted his face into a grotesque idiocy of ex- pression, pursing his lips so extremely. and setting his brows so awry, that his other features e carried out of all famillar likeness, effecting an altera- tion as shocking to behold in a man of his severe cast of countenance, as was his falsetto mimicry to hear. She rose in a kind of terror, perceiving that the the contortion was produced in burlesque of her own expression, and, as he pressed npearer her, stepped back, over- turning her chair. She had little recol- lection of her father during her child- hood; and as long as she could reme ber. no one had spoken to her angrily, or even roughly. As she retreated from him. he leaned forward, thrusting the ideous mask closer to her white and horror-stricken face. “You can’t see anything to resent in that!™ he gibbered. so funny, is it? Funny! Funny Funny! rm shoew you whether it's funny or not, I'll show you!" His voice rose almost to a shriek. “You hang around fires, do you, on the public streets at night? You're a nice one for me to leave in charge of my house while I'm away, vou trollep! What did you mean by going up on that roof? You knew that damned Vanrevel was there! You did, 1 say, you knew it!’ She ran toward the door with a frightened cry; but he got between it and her, menacing her with his up- raised open hand, staking them over her. “You're a lovely daughter, aren't you!” he shouted hoarsely. “You knew perfectly well who was on that roof, and you went! Didn’t you go? Answer me that! If I'd had arms about me when I got there, I'd have shot that man dead! He was on my property, giving orders, the black hcund! And when I ordered him out, he told me if I interfered with his work before it was finished, he’d have me thrown out—me that owned the whole place; and there wasn't a man that would lend me a pis- toi! ‘Rescue!’ You'd better rescue him feom me, you palm-laden dove, for I'll shoot him, I willl I'll kill that dog; and he knows it. He can bluster in a crowd, but he’ll hide now! He's a coward and—" “He came home with me; he brought me home last night!” Her voice rang out in the room like that of some other person, and she hardly knew that it was herself who spoke. “You lie!” he screamed, and fell back from her, his face working as though under the dominance of some physical disorder, the flesh of it plastic beyond conception, so that she cried out and covered her face with her arm. “You lie! Isaw you at the hedge with Crai- ley Gray, though you thourht I didn't. ‘What do you want to lie like that for? Vanrevel didn’t even speak to you. I asked Madrillon. You lie!™ He choked upon the words; a racking cough shook him from head to foot; he staggered back and dropped upon her overturned chair, his arms beating the table in front of him, his head jerking spasmodically backward and forward as he gasped for breath. “Ring the bell,” he panted thickly, with an incoherent gesture. “Nelson knows. Ring!™ Nelson evidently knew. He brought brandy and water from the sideboard with no stinting hand., and within ten minutes Mr. Carewe was in his accus- tomed seat, competent to finish his breakfast. In solitude, however, he sat, and no one guessed his thoughts. For Miss Betty had fled to her own room and had boited the door. She lay upon the bed, shuddering and shivering with nausea and cold, though the day was warm. Then, like a hot pain in her breast, came a homesickness for St. Mary’s, and the flood-tide of tears. as she thought of the quiet convent in the sunshine .f the west, the peace of it, and the goodness of everybody there. “Sister Cecilia!” Her shoulders shook with the great sob that followed this name, dearest to her in the world, convulsively whispered to the pillow. “Dear Sister Cecilia!” She patted the white pillow with her hand, as though it were the cool cheek against which she yearned to lay her own. “Ah, you would know—you would know With the thought of the serene face of the good sister, and of the kind arms that would have gone round her in her trou- ble. her sobbing grew loud and uncon- trollable. But she would not have her father hear and buried her face deep in the pillov After a time, she began to grow ned, and lay with wet eyes, der lip quivering with each broken sigh. stars!” she whis- quieter, her the deep intake “Oh, stars, stars, pered. “M upon the door upon china. * “What is So aquick was There came a soft knock and the clink of silver “Missy 2" Miss Betty that, al= though she answered almost at once, the tears were washed away, and she was passing a cool, wet towel over her eyes at the moment she spoke. 1 brung yo' breakfas’, Old Nelson's voice was always low and gentle, with a quaver and hesi- tancy in the utterance; now it was ten- der and comforting with the co: hension of one suffering, the e nary tact, which the old nearly all come to possess. en-wing on piece brown toast. h When she opened the door he came in, bending attentively over his tray, and, without a glance toward his young mis- tress, made some show of fuss and bus- tle, as he placed it upon a table near the window and drew up a chair for her so that she could sit with her back to the light. “Dah now!"” he exclaimed softly, re- moving the white napkin and display- ing other dainties besides the chicken wing. “Dess de way! Dat ole mammy in the kitchen, she got her faflin’ an’ her grievin’ sins; but de way she do han'le chicken an’ biscuit sutney ain't none on ‘em' She plead fo' me to ax you how you like dem biscuit.” He kept his head bent low over the table, setting a fork closer to Betty's hand; arranging the plates, then rear- ranging them, but never turning his eyes in her direction. “Dat ole mammy mighty vain, yes- suh!” He suffered a very quiet chuckle to escape him. “She did most sutney 'sist dat I ax you ain’t you like dem biscuit. She de ve'y vaines’ woman in dis State, dat ole mammy, yessuh!" And now he cast one quick glance out of the corner of his eye a: Miss Betty, before venturing a louder chuckle. “She reckon dem biscuit goin® git her by Sain’ Petuh when she ‘proach de hevumly gates! Uhuh! I tell her she got git redemption fo’ de algs she done ruin dese many yeahs: ‘case she as useless wid 2n ommelick as a two-day calf on d k ice!” Here he laughed loud and long. “You jass go and talk wid mammy, some day, Missy; you'll see how vain dat woman is.” “Has father gone out, Nelson? asked Betty in a low voice. “Yes'm: he up town.” The old man’s tone sank at once to the level of her own; became confidential, as one speaks to another In a room whers somebody is 1ll. “He mekkin’ prepe- tration to go down de rivuh dis aft’- noon. He say he done broke de news to you dat he goin’ 'way. Dey goin® buil’ dem wa'house right up, an’ yo’ pa he necistate go 'way ‘count de con- track. He be gone two week’, honey,” Nelson finished, without too much the air of parting cheery tidings, but with just enough. “Law no, Mi ! Dat big Mis Tan- berry. dass de bes’ frien" we all got, she home ag'in, an’ yo' pa goin® invite her visit at de house, whiles he gons, an’ to stay a mont’ aftuh he git back, too, soze she kin go to all de doin’s an’ junketin’s wid you, and talk wid de young mens dat you don’ ltke whiles yau talks wid dem you does Itke.” “What time will fathér come home?™ “Home? He be gone two week’, honey!" “No: I mean to-day.” Law! He ain't comin’ back. Bid me pack de trunk an’ ca’y um down te de boat at noon. Den ke bid me say far’-ye-well an’ s kine good-by fo’ him, honey. ay he think you ain't feelin’ too well, soze he won't ‘sturb ve, hisself, an’ dat he unestly do hope you goin’ have splen’id time whiles he trabblin” (Nelson’s imagination cov- ered many deficits in his master's courtesy.) ““ay he reckon you an’ ole Miz Tanberry goin’ git 'long mighty nice wid one’'nurr. An' dass what me an’ mammy reckon "spechually boun’ te take place. ‘case dat a mighty gay lady, dat big Miz Tanberry, an’ ole frien’ 'er owah fambly. She 'us & frien’ er yo' memmo's, honey.” Miss Betty had begun to make & pretense to eat, only to please the old man, but the vain woman's cookery had been not unduly extolled, and Nel- gon laughed with pleasure to see the flufty biscuits and the chicken wing not nibbled at'but actually eaten. This was a healthy young lady, he thought, one who would do the household credit and justify the extravagant pride which kitchen and stable already had in her. He was an old house-servant, there- fore he had seen many young ladies go through unhappy hours, and he ad- mired Miss Betty the more because she was the first one who had indulged in strong weeping and did not snuffle at intervals afterward. He understood perfectly everything that had passed between father and daughter that morning. When her breakfast was finished, she turned slowly to the window, and, while her eves di@ not refill, a slight twitching of the upper lids made him believe that she was going over the whole scene again in her mind; where- upon he began to move briskly about the rocm with a busy air, .icking up her napkin, dusting a chair with his hand. exchanging the position of the andirons in the fireplace; and, appar- ently discovering fhat the portrait of Georges Meilhac was out of line, he set it awry, then straight again, the while he hummed an clG “spiritual” of which only the words “Chain de Lion Down™ were allowed to be quite audible. They were repeated often, and at each repe- tition of *hem he seemed profoundly,