The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 2, 1904, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. swered. “T really owe him something of an apology.” “I will tell him,”” Lady Lascelles said. “And now let us leave the men Jone and talk aoout ourselves.” “] am delighted to see you all here,” Anna said, smiling upon them from behind the tea-tray, “but I shall have you to excuse me for a few & My agent is here and he s brought his contract for me to sign. 1 will give you all some tea and then T must leave you for a few min- utes.” e three men, who had arrived n a minute or two of one anoth- seived her little speech in dead son, who had been stand- back to the window, came little farther into the ing with his suddénly a room. “Miss Pellissier,” he said, “I came here this afternoon hoping particular- I¥ to see you for a few moments be- fore you signed that contract.” She shook her head. “We may just as well have our talk afterward,” she said, “and I need not keep poor Mr. Earles waiting.” Courtlaw suddenly interposed. May I be allowed to say,” he de- clared, “that I am here with the same intention.” “And I also,” Brendon echoed. Anna was suddenly very quiet. She was perhaps as near tears as ever before in her.life. “If I had three hands,” she said, with a faint smile, “I would give one 10 each of you. I know that you are ali my friends and 1 know that you all have very good advice to give me. But I am afraid I am a shockingly obsti- nate and a very ungrateful person. No, 't let me call myself that. I am teful, indeed I am. But on this matter my mind is quite made up.” Ennison hesitated for a moment. “Miss Pellissier,” he said, “these gentlemen are your friends and there- fore they are my friends. If I am to have no other opportunity I will speak before them. I came here to beg you not to sign that contract. I came to beg you instead to do me the honor of bécoming my wife.” “And 1, Courtlaw said, “although I have asked before in vain, have come to ask you once more the same thing.” “And 1” Brendon said, humbly, “al- though I am afraid there is no chance for me, my errand was the same. Anna looked at them for a moment with a pitiful attempt at a smile. Then her head disappeared suddenly in her bhands and her shoulders shook vio- lently. “Please forgive me—for one mo- ment,”. she sobbed. “I—I shall be all right directly.” Brendon rushed to the plano and strummed out a tune. The others hurried to the window. And Anna was conscious of a few mo- ments of exquisite emotion. After all, life had still its pulsations. The joy of being loved thrilled her as nothing before had ever done, a curious ab- stract joy which had -nothing in it at that moment of regret or even pity. She called them back very soon. The signs of tears had all gone, but some subtle change seemed to have stolen into her face. She spoke read- ily enough, but there was a new tim- idity in her manner. “My friends,” she said, “my dear friends, I am going to make the same answer to all of you—and that is per- haps you will say no answer at all. At present I cannot marry, I will not become bound even to any one. It would be very hard perhaps to make you understand just how I feel about it. I won't try. Only I feel that you all want to make life too easy for me and I am determined to fight my own battles a little longer. If any of you —or all of you—feel the same in six months' time from to-day, will' you come, if you care to, and see me then?” There was a brief silence. spoke at last. “You will sign the contract?” “I shall sign the contract. I think that I am very fortunate to have it to sign.” “Do wyou mean.” -Courtlaw asked, “that from now to the end of six months you do not wish to see us— any of us?” Her eves were a little dim again. “I do mean that,” she declared. “T want to have no distractions. My work will be all sufficient. I have an aunt who is coming to live with me, and I do not intend to receive any visitors at all. It will be a little lone- Iy sometimes” she said, looking around at them, “and I shall miss you all, but it is the fairest for myself— and I think for you. Do not avoid me if we meet by accident, but I trust to vou all not to let the accident happen if you can help it."” Brendon rose and came toward her with outstretched hand. ‘“Good-by, Miss Pellissier, and suc- cess to you,” he said. “May you have as much good fortune as you deserve, but not enough to make you forget us.” Courtlaw rose, too. “You are of the genus obstinate,” he said. “I do not know whether to wish you success or not. I will wish you success or failure, whichever is the better for you.” “And 1” Ennison said, holding her fingers tightly and forcing her to look into his eyes, “I will tell you what I have wished for you when we meet gix months from to-day.” CHAPTER XXXVI. SIX MONTHS AFTER. Upon the moss-grown path, where the rose bushes ran wild, almost met, came Anna in a spotless white gown, with the flush of her early morning Ennison walk in her cheeks and something of the brightness of it in her eyes. In one hand she carried a long-stalked red rose, dripping with dew, in the other the post-bag. She reached a tiny yellow-fronted cottage covered with flowering creepers and entered the front room by the wide- open window. Breakfast was laid for one, a dish of fruit and a shining coffee equipage. By the side of her plate was a small key. With trembling fingers she opened the post-bag. There was one letter. Only one. She opened it and read it at once. It was dated from the House of Commons on the previous day. “My Dear Miss Pellissier— “To-morrow the six months will be up. For days I have been undecided as to whether I would come to you or “On or about the day you receive this letter, Anna, the six months will be up. Do you expect me, I wonder.” I think not. At any rate, here I am, and here I shall be, twenty thousand feet above all your poison- reeking cities, up where God's wind comes fresh from heaven, very near, indeed, to the untrodden snows. Some- times I tremble, Anna, to think how near I came to passing through life without a glimpse, & moment’s revela- tion of this greatest and most awful of mysteries, the mystery of primeval nature. It is a true saying that in the mountains there is peace. One's sense of proportion, battered out of all shape in the daily life of cities, reasserts it- self. I love you still, Anna, but life holds other things than the love of man for woman. Some day I shall come In The Sunday Call on October 9 Begins no. I would like you to belleve that the decision I have arrived at -to stay away—is wholly and entirely to save vou pain. It should be the happiest day of your life, and I would not detract from its happiness by letting you re- member for a moment that there are others to whom your inevitable decision must bring some pain. “For I know that you love Ennison. You tried bravely enough to hide your preference, to look at us all with the same eyes, to speak to us in the same tone. It was not your fault you failed. If by any chance I have made a mis- take a word will bring me to you. But I know very well that that word will never be spoken. “Your great success has been my joy, our joy as well as yours. You have made for yourself a unique plac2 upon the stage. We hgve so many actresses who aspire to great things la the drama, not one who can interpret as you have interpreted it, the delicate finesse, the finer lights and shades of true comedy. Ennison will mak= a thou- sand enemies if he takes you from the stage. Yet I think that he will do 1it. “For my own part I have come ful- 1y now into my inheritance. I am bound to admit that I greatly enjoy my altered life. Every minute I spend here is an education to me. Be- fore very long I hope to have definite work. Some of my schemes are al- ready in hand. People shrug their shoulders and call me a crazy social- ist. Yet I fancy that we who have been poor ourselves must be the best judges of the needs of the people. “You will write to me, I am sure— and from the date of your letter I trust most earnestly that I may come back to my old place as “Your devoted friend, “WALTER BRENDON."” She set the letter down and drew’ from her pocket another with a for- eign postmark which had come the day before. This one, too, she read. “‘Hassell's Camp, near Colorado. O ® By Otho B. Senga. (Copyright, 1804, by Otho B. Senga.) AMMOND, strong, alert, silent, guided his dashing automobile in and out amid the crush of trafficc. His companion was silent, also, which fact might have disconcerted a less observant man than Hammond. He stopped the machine before. a massive granite building and sprang to the sidewalk. Miss Markham watched him absently. He had said that he must stop at his office, but the waiting was not unwelcome to her. She liked to watch the great drays and heavy wagons and to ob- serve the sights and sounds of this un- familiar part of the city. Presently she noticed that Ham- mond had not entered the building, but was standing in the doorway, looking up and down the street as if watching for some one. He caught her wandering glance and waved his hand, smiling brightly. Then he put both hands to his mouth, making a horn, and called something to her which she could not hear above the roar of the street. “‘He is like a boy,” she thought, and laughed in sympathy with his evident joyousness. “There Is never any gloom or any uncertainty about him,” adding sadly, “men are so sure of themselves —and of one another. I wish—I wish I knew if he thinks only of my money as all the others seem to do.” Still watching his eager face she knew that whatever he had been walit- ing for was coming, and he pointed up the street and laughed again as e ran lightly down the steps. Two young Italians, a man and a woman, were making ready to play. The girl wore a rose wreath on her dark hair and her eyes were filled with the light of love as she looked fondly in the face of her companion. The strains of the music came to back and I will show you on cenvas the things which have come to me up here among the eternal silence. ““Many nights I have thought of you, Anna. Your face has flitted out of my watch-fire and then I have been a haunted man. But with the morning, the glorious unstained morning, the passion of living would stir even the blood of a clod. It comes over the mountains, Anna, pink darkening into orange red, everywhere a wonderful cloud sea, scintillating with color. Itis enough to make a man throw away canvas and brushes intc the bottomless precipices, enough to make one weep with despair at his utter and absolute unimportance. Nature is God, Anna, and the greatest artist of us all a pigmy. When I think of those atcliers of ours, the art jargon, the decadents with their flamboyant talk, I long for a two-edged sword and a minute of Divinity. To perdition with them all. “I shall come back, if at all, 2 new man. I have a new cult to teach, a new enthusiasm. I feel years younger, a man again. My first vigit will be to you. I must tell you all about God's land, this marvelous virgin country, with its silent forests and dazzling peaks. I make no apology for not being with you now. You love Enni- son. Believe me, the bitternes# of it has almost departed, crushed out of me together with much of the weariness and sorrow I brought with me here by the nameless glory of these loncly months. Yet I shall think of you to- day. 1 pray, Anna, that you may find vour happiness. Your friend, “DAVID COURTLAW."” “P. 8.—I do not congratulate you on vour success. I was certain of it. Tam glad or sorry according as it has brought you happiness.” Anna’s eyes were a little dim as she poured out her coffee, and the lauah she attempted was not altogether a success, “This is all very well,” she said, “but two out of the three are rank deserters gt Miss Markham in fitful snatches, min- gled with the noises of the street. She saw that Hammond was listening as it to a symphony, and she wondered a little as to the meaning of the scene. She saw him place something in the girl’s small, brown hand and then the man took off his cap with low obeis- ance and the girl courtesied prettily as Hammond raised his hat politely and made his way to the automobile, - “What is it?” she questioned briefly, ag he took is seat. “Only the beautiful outcome of a little romar®e that 1 have watched as i* blossomed here amid the sordid rush of business.” “They are lovers—these two?" fall- ing in with his mood. “'Yes, wedded last night. Two mag- nificent types of primitive humanity!"” with the enthusiasm of artistic per- ception. They watched the two as they went down the street, each pushing the plano with one hand, while the other hands were clasped. “Will you tell me about them?” she asked as they reached a broad, quiet avenue away from the din and con- fusion of the city. ‘“Are you really interested?” turn- ing to look at her curiously. “Very much so! Please tell me.” “They are Antoine and Carita— they may have other names—these are all T know. I have watched them from my window all winter. He had a tiny fruit stand on the corner and she was errand girl in a big millinery establishment on the next street. I saw the first love glances, and I swear by Bunker Hill they did mot come from Antoine.” Miss Markham laughed softly. “I watched Carita passing and re- passing, making several trips by the little stand for each errand. Then there would be days when she did not come at all, and Antolne’s neck would have been safer in those days if it had really been made of rubber instead of the material provided by the Creator.” Miss Markham smiled appreciatively. ‘shc could f;,ney the ardent Italian gaz- ng up and down the street, w: for his sweetheart. Shenig —and if the papers tell the truth the third is as bad. I believe I am doomed to be an old maid.” She finished her breakfast and strolled out across the garden with the letter still in her hand. Beyond was a field sloping steeply upward, and at the top a small pine plantation. She climbed slowly toward it, keeping close to the hedge side, fragrant with wild roses, and holding her skirts high above the dew-laden grass. Arrived in the plantation she sat down with her back against a tree trunk. Already the warm sun was drawing from the pines their delicious odor. Be- low her stretched a valley of rich meadowland, of yellow cornfields, and beyond moorland hillside glorious with purple heather and golden gorse. She tried to compose her thoughts, to think The Novel said softly, “that it was precisely for this I have worked so hard? It is just the aim I have had in view all the time. I wanted to have something to give up. F did not care—no woman really cares—to play the beggar maid to your King Cophetua.” “Then you will really give it all up!” he exclaimed. She laughed. “When we go indoors I will show you the offers 1 have refused,” she answered. “They have all been trying to turn my head. I think that nearly every manager in London has made me an offer. My reply to all of them has been the same. My engagement at the ‘Garrick’ terminates Saturday week, and then I am free.” “You will make me horribly con- ceited,” he answered. “I think that I shall be the most unpopular man in of Politics By Francis Lynde of the last six months, to steep herself in the calm beauty of the surround- ings. And she found herself able to do nothing of the sort. A new restless- ness seemed to have fallen in upon her. She started at the falling of a leaf, at the lumbering of a cow through the hedge. Her heart was beating with quite unaccus- tomed vigor, her hands were hot, she was conscious of a warmth in her blood which the summer sunshine was scarcély -responsible for. She strug- gled against it quite uselessly. She knew very well that a new thing was stirring in her. The period of repres- sion was over. It is foolish, she mur- mured to herself, foolish. He will not come. He cannot. And then all her restlessness was turned to joy. She sprang to her feet and stood listening with parted lips and eager eyes. So he found her when he came around the corner of the spin- ney. “Anna,” he cried eagerly. She held out her arms to him and smiled. &8 . “And where,” he asked, “are my ri- vals?” “Deserters,” she answered, laughing. “It is you alone, Nigel, who have saved me from being an old maid. Here are their letters.” He took them from her and read them. When he came to a certain sen- tence in Brendon’s letter he stopped short and looked up at her. “So Brendon and 1" he said, “have been troubled with the same fears. I, too, Anna, have watched and read of your success with—I must confess it— some misgiving.” ‘“Please tell me why?” she asked. “Do you need me to tell you? You have tasted the luxury of power. You have made your public, you are already a personage. And I want you for my- self—for my wife.” h‘She took his hand and smiled upon m. “Don’t you understand, Nigel,” she SB555552, e A A A WHERE, EXTREMES MEET §§ ““Well, occasionally making pretense of an abnormal desire for bananas, I rushed out to the stand while she was still lingering there, and so I some- times overheard a few sentences—their soft Italian love words sounding like bird notes in spring. Can’t you fancy them building a nest somewhere of boughs and moss—they wouldn't re- quire much more than the birds, you know—and settling down like the birds to sing their love songs and rear their young?" A new light shone in Miss Markham's clear eyes. Hammond's head swam for an in- stant with a comprehension of the magnitude of what he meant to do, but he went on steadily. /“The day of the tornado—you re- member it—when the wind tore shut- ters from the houses and overthrew chimneys, and great limbs were stripped from the trees as the small boy pulls leaves from a twig—that day I witnessed the downfall of the House of Buona. In other words, the com- plete destruction of Antoine’s fruit- stand and peanut-cooker.” “Poor Antoine! He made one or two frantic endeavors to prevent the dis- aster, and then, crushed by the mis- fortune, he clung to the doorway of the cffice building and watched the gamins as they wildly scrambled for the scat- tered fruit.” “And was everything entirely ruined?” Miss Markham’s hand in- stinctively sought her purse. The peanut-cooker lay in the mud, bent and twisted out of all semblance to its kind. Antoine picked it up with trembling hands, and then realizing its uselessness, replaced it in the gut- ter, while the tears streamed down his cheeks. “That isn't all?" expectantly. Hammond continued obediently: “‘Never mind, Antoine,’ I said cheer- fully—Iit's so easy to be cheerful over another’s misfortunes, you know— ‘you’ll soon be on your feet again. ‘We must expect reverses in business.” At my words of sympathy the flood- gates of his grief were opened, and the words fairly tumbled over one snother, his soft, broken English London. You are not night; are you?"” playing to- “Not to-night,” she answered. “I am giving my understudy a chance. I am going up to dine with my sister.” “Annabel is a prophetess,” he de- clared. “I, too, am asked.” “It s a conspiracy,” she exclaimed. “Come, we must go home and have some luncheon. My little maidservant will think that I am lost.” They clambered down the hill to- gether. perfume of flowers, and the melody of murmuring insects, the blue sky was cloudless, the heat of ‘the sun was tempered by the heather-scented west wind. Ennison paused by the little gate. “I think,” he said, “that you have found the real home of the lotos eaters, Here one might live the life of golden days.” She shook her head gently. “Neither you nor I, Nigel, is made of such stuff,” she answered. “These are the playgrounds of life. The great heart of -the world beats only where men and women are gathered together. You have your work before you and He kissed her on the lips. v “I believe,” he said, “that you mean me to be Prime Minister.” CHAPTER XXXVIL Sir John Proposes a Toast. Sir John raised his glass. “Mr. Ennison,” he said, with a touch of his former pomposity, “permit me to supplement my more formal congratu- lations of a few minutes ago by drink- ing your very good health. Anna,” he added, turning toward her, “it is hard to know what to wish you, for you seem to have everything. You have health, success and—Ennison. I think that instead I must ask you to drink with me to our* mutual forgiveness. May I be a better brother-in-law in the future than I have been in the past.” finally relapsing into Italian altogether as he told his story. He had been so careful of his money—he had saved twenty-three ‘dolla.’ They were to have been married to-morrow, he and Carita; and he was to have bought Carita a new gown and a rose wreath for her hair, and they would have been so happy! And now—then he pointed eloquently to the ruined pea- nut-cooker, waved both hands in a gesture expressing the utter nothing- ness of his condition, and the ready tears came again. “I missed him then for several weeks. Tie other day they came to- gether and waited until I came out from my office. ‘My brudda—he die,’ began Antoine cheerily, as soon as I joined them. ‘An’ leave Antoine sev- enty-four della,’ said Carita, her eyes big with the magnitude of the for- tune. ‘An’ his business,’ Antoine added pompously. ‘Did he have a stand?’ I asked him. ‘No, a piano. ;Ve m,lrrled ourselves to-night, Thurs- ay.” " Hammond paused abruptly. “Antoine hunted me up last night— at the club. Said his wife—you should have seen his eves when he said the ‘ward—his wife wanted to come and play for me first, believing it would bring them luck. I hadn't intended to go down town this morning, as you know; but I thought that was really very little to do if it would add anything to their happiness. Foolish things, aren’t they?” He turned his ead away—she would agree with this, of course, and he couldn't bear to have her do so. She put her hand lightly on his arm. “No, they are not foolish. They are wise. They have found the greatest thing in the world. Those who win love need look no further; there is nothing more to have here. They who lose it lose everything.” He put his own strong hand over the smaller one resting on his arm. % ‘il;gll_ ‘we look for it—together, Eliza- She looked hastily about—there was no one near, they were quite in the country now—and raised her beautiful face to his. “I think we have found it already,” she whispered. The air was sweet with the ~ “The balance of fault is on my side,” Anna said softly. “We will drink for- getfulness to all those things which are better forgotten.” “It may interest you to know. John remarked, setting down his g! “that the wine came frcm the ce of a very rising young firm of wine merchants, Messrs. Montague Hill & Co. “He has quite recovered thén?” Anna asked. “Absolutely,” . Sir John answered. “The man seems to have come to his senses inm . more ways than eone. He is " engaged . to- be married - to a -little girl out Hampstead way, and seems perfectly contented I met them together in Regent street this. afternoon and had the honor of an introduction.” “And what gent street, si re you doing in Re- Annabel demanded. Sir John thrust his hand into his pocket. “Buying these little mementoes of a very delightful day,” he answered, producing two morocco cases, one of which he passed to Anna and one to Annabel. “Come, Ennison, the car- riage is waiting and the division might come off.in a quarter of an hour now. We must not forget that we are serv- ants of the people.” They left the room amidst a little duologue of delight. Sir John knew how to make handsome presents and had sufficiently good taste not to at- tempt to choose them himself.. Anna- bel linked her arm through her hus- band’'s and Insisted upon séeing him off herself. She lit his cigarette, pulled his tie straight and rearranged the orchid in his buttonhole. When the two entered the House of .Com- mons a few minutes latér an acquaint- ance, who stopped to speak to Enni- son, looked after his companion with an amused smile. “Never knew a man improved so much by marrying a young wife as Sir John,” he remarked. .“He's getting positively jaunty.” Ennison went on his way laughing. CE Back in Cavendish Square the two girls were sitting over the fire in An- nabel’'s own rooms. They were sitting very close together, and there were traces of tears in Annabel's eves. “I think, Anna,” she said softly, “that I am cured forever of expecting recmance only from romantic people. I shall never forget—telling John. It seemed to me fair to tell him, and yet so very hopeless.” Anna nodded. “I too, think, dear,” she answered, “that it was wonderful.”™ “I always thought of him,” Annabel continued, “as hide-bound in conven- ticnality, and you know how engrossed .he was with this -electioneering. . Yet when 1 told him, it was just as though suth a place as Parlitament. did not exist. He never seemed to think of it or the election for a moment. I ex- pected to find him gloomy and de- pressed on the journey. He was noth- ing of the sort. He was simply deli- ciously - excited all the-time. - And, Anna, when he began to try to dress like a Frenchman- I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He wore a ready-made suit of French clothes and a big floppy tie, and I'm sure he prac- ticed walking on his toes all the time. I never loved any one so much, Anna, in all my life as I loved him then. Everything seemed altogether differ- ent. It has semed so ever since.” Anna smiled. < “People are always so différent from what we expect,” she remarked. “You meet an ordinary sort of person who seems fairly obvious and after a time you begin to find yourself bored with him just because you feel sure that you know all about him and exactly what he would do under certain con- ditions. And then the conditions come and you rub your eyes and feel very small. The timid person becomes a hero, the stolid person discloses a mar- vellous vein of sentiment, the cirtuous person shocks us, and the rake becomes a puritan. Look at our friend Mr. Montague Hill, a vulgar, passionate : man, half crazed with his own folly. Yet he was not afraid to die with a falschood upon hig lips. It was a.fine impulse which made him write and sign that paper. Yet ¥You might have watched the man all your lifs and seen nothing to make you believe him ca- pable of it."” Anna sprang up and listened. A de- lightful smile had parted her lips. “Baby 1s awake,” she exclaimed. “Let us go and see him."” S SR Anna came first from the nursery, and walting for her sister drew aside for 2 moment the curtains which hung before the window.. It came to her with a momentary flash of recollection that at the three great crises of her In- ward life she had found herself Hke ° this, looking out into the night. Was it some secret desire for the sympathy of these millions of her fellow-crea- tures, these sleeping and toiling and pleasuré-hunting sons . and daughters . of the world, or was It perhaps because the strain of life and her own emotions had suddenly become 80 tense that the walls of builded houses had stifled her? . So much had happened since theé fiat of David Courtlaw and her own passion- ate desire for real and Intimate con- tact with life and its natural forces had made of her something of an ad- venturess. Yet she was conscious now of a certain delightful sense of rest. She had notched her experiences deep, she felt herself no longer a dilettante in eraotions. She had passed lightly through the maelstrom of life, she knew now what was meant by the storm and the swirl and the tempest of living. And before her — The light In the great clock tower went suddenly out. A faint flush stained her cheeks, her eyes grew won- derfully soft. way home. - THE END. Nigel then was on his.