SHORT STORY

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 352, 5 February 1903, Page 7

SHORT STORY

(Continu torn last week.) ! A.ain the old trader rose upon him gnome-like from the darkness; again the same look of incredulity vexed his ancient face as Valentine asked him if he had another doll like the one that had already been br-usht there. No, the old man had not quite the same,bathe added cautiously he had a more expensive article, and in obedience t-» Valentine's encouraging nod, he produced from a cupboard another doll, enveloped in tissue paper, which proved to be larger than the first, more florid of cheek, more fall of figure, more yellow as to the hair, and more blue as to the inexpressive eye. It was a shilling more than the other, and the old shopkeeper eyed Valentine dubiously as he said so much, fearful that fate could not really accord him two such cases of castom in a single day. He waa swiftly and pleasantly disappointed. Valentine paid the money, sized the doll, darted out of the ■hop and ran at full speed towards the cottage in which the child had disappeared. The cottage was a laborer's cottage, small and mean, with a small, mean strip of garden in front, bulwarked by » small mean wall. As Valentine leaned inquiring upon this wall a woman come to the open door and looked a challenging inquiry. He wanted to see the little girl who had come in just now with a broken doll in her arms. Vaguely suspicious the woman retreated into obscurity, called a child's name, and in another moment reappeared urging forward the little girl of Valentine's quest. She was an ordinary little girl enough, but to Valentine she was infinitely significant, for she still clasped, passionately mother-like, the defaced doll- and she eyed Valentine fearfully as if she dreaded that she might be called upon to surrender her treasure. Valentine immediately unfolded his other doll and handed it to her. Without a word she received it in one arm, released to do so from the clasp that inclosed the other puppet, and st od there stating at him between the two delusive images of herself. Valentine swiftly silenced the woman's voluble and unavailing calls upon the child to' thank the gentleman'by slipping half-a-crown into her hand, and turning on his heel made off in the direction of the village as if he were walking for a wager. Only once he turned his head. The woman was loosing after him in stupid wonder. The child waa looking at her possessions. Hex little head bent for an instant to kiss one of her new family—and it was the battered doll that she kissed. There were tears in Valentine's eyes as he went his way. There were tears in his heart when he found himself open the Winston*' lawn, when Lena was swinging in a hammock and Culpin was standing by talking. Winston and Mabel Bennett were playing battle-dore and shuttlecock. Mrs Winston sustained him with tea and comforted him by the .revival of her remarks upon the early Italian poets, precisely at the point where she had left them off. Beyond the lawn the river was crimson in the evening sunlight. When the river was silver with moonlight Valentine stood at the end of the geaiden smoking a cigarette. The fine W*oke, rising into the quiet air, seemed to him like the hut faint exhalations of a funeral pyre, the pyre of dead love and wasted beauty and lost hope. Yonder in the room with the open windows aßd the shining lamps. Culpin and Miss Bennett and the two Winstons were playing bridge as gravely as if the fate of the empires depended upon their deeds, A woman's hand had been wandering over • the keys of the piano blending Schumann and coon songs and music-hall melodies into a sufficiently bewildering imbroglio, but the music had stopped and Valentine knew what waa going to happen, for it had happened before. He turned to see what he had expected; the slight, graceful figure gliding over the grass, the floating white draperies, the comely coils of hair open the uncovered head. His heart had ached before with pleasure; it ached now, but the ache was only pain as he looked into the beautiful face and read there an annoyance that was almost anger, a surprise that was almost a regret. There were some seconds of age-long silence and then the girl spoke. ° 'Clara tells me that you are going away to-morrow. Is it true P Valentine felt his lips tighten queerly as he answer id quietly, * Quite true.' • Why are you going away P she asked imperiously, and he thought that her eyes were very bright and that her lips were very red, and the dull pain at the core of his being grew keener, .but he only answered: *Do you really wish to know P ' I shouldn't ask if I didn't,' Lena said, and she tried to aay it a with a smile, but he read impatience in her accent and he knew that the petulance was assumed * Why are you going away P 'Every holiday must come to an end sooner or later,' Valentine responded elowly, looking at the glowing red end of his cigarette as if it were some curious natural object seen now for the first time and deserving of intentest scrutiny •Mine has come to an end, sooner, thatfs r 'You are not telling me the truth,' she whispered sharply, and he whispered back 5° *A doß ' t think you rea Uy need to be told it. •Yes I do,' uhesaid. 'Yes, I do. We have been—friends—' there was the slightest imaginable catch in her voice as she said the word—'and friendship means frankness, or at least it oueht to do 80.' He was looking straight into her pale, strained face now and he spoke very slowly. •! am going away because I have lost something that I cared for very much—once.' He wondtrtd that he could say the words at Ul; he wondered even more that he could say them bo easily. The girl's face softened a little. «Are' yoa angry with me?* she asked. He shook his head. * 1 have no right to be angry. '.Do you think I was flirting ' "*■» she began, but te stopped her. • You called me tegumental to-day,' he said gently; 'so I am, I suppose, it's no net our talking about it, for you wouldn't, couldn't, understand. lou know very well that I have lived through these ummer days feeding on a great hope,

Tfte Man and the Doll,

cherishing a great desire, loving a great loveS She interrupted him impatiently. Of course I know that,' she said; ■ your eyee, your voice, everything betrayed you. What has happened P' 'Nothing— to you; everything t> me,' he replied, Bimply and sadly. *I can't talk of it. lam only going away.' * But you must talk of it,' she insisted. 'I have the right to know. What has come between ns P He straightened himself and looked away. • D:ath,' he said, and the girl, astonished, echoed him, ' Death P* 'Yes,'he went on. 'Between me and my heart's desire there Ues a dead body, the body of a doll. Wneu a man loves a woman so dearly as to ask her to be his wife he most remember that the wife may be a mother. That doll revealed yon, denounced yon—forgive me—judged you. Don't let us say any more; we should not have said so much.' Their eyea met now steadily and the look on the girl's face was not pleasant. ' And do you mean to say that just for -a miserable beast of a doll ' ' Just for a miserable beast of a doll,' he answered. «The meaning of the world and its Buffering, its pains and pities—they were all in that doll, you know.' 'Don't you think yon are making a fool of yourself?' she asked, and he answered: ' I think not.' Then she turned and went into the house, and a few minutes later Valentine, standing .there, heard the piano jingle and her sweet, freeh voice singing the drunken song from 'The Belle of New York.'—Justin H. McCarthy.