A SHORT STORY.

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 75, 28 March 1918, Page 4

A SHORT STORY.

(All Rights Reserved.) BEAUTIFUL JACONETTE. i BY CLIVE HOLLAND. | Author of “My Japanese Wife,” “An j ; Egyptian Coquette,” “The Seed of the Poppy,” "Marcella of the Latin t Quarter,” etc. PART 11. But Jaconette was ill at case. Something seemed to tell her that Bcttan} . would not come, and then she turned j to Comstock, and said quickly : ; “Monsieur Comstock, you know why j Monsieur Bettany is not here!' 1 j A shadow went over Comstock s ; face, and for a moment lie did not : reply to the girl’s question, but j seemed to regard her almost itflsce-; inglv. | “What is the matter with Bettany, • anyhow ?” said Giles Smethwick. ; “Yes, what is the matter with him \ —anyhow, old sawbones ? said Jules : la Fontaine. And then the whole of. them fired off questions simply because Comstock answered none of them. ! At last the latter, driven in a cor- j ner by the cross-fire of inquiries, said j slowly: ““Bettany is very sick, I am afraid. I do not know what it is, but, • anyway, it is serious. He was taken ill quite suddenly. I was with him the best part of the night, and 1 only left this morning to go to the Clinique after I had found one of the little Sisters to look after him. lie did not | know anyone in the early morning j hours, and I’m afraid he’ll have a j tough fight to pull through. j While Comstock was speaking Jaconette sat with her hands clenched and resting on the edge of the table, and her face almost as white as a sheet. Marie Dercourt noticed it and smiled. It was so like Jaconette to take things to heart, thought the other girl, who had a reputation for being brilliantly heartless. Then, as Comstock refused to say any more, Jaconette suddenly rose. “Hullo.” said La Fontaine. “What is the matter? Where are you off to?" and he laid his' hand on her arm as though to detain her. Quite roughly she threw the engaging clasp off, and pushed her way from behind the table past the knees of Smethwick. “ I am going to the Rue Monsieur Le Prince,” she said. I am going to Monsieur Bettany.” Marie Dercourt laughed. The others of the group, with the exception of Comstock, said either, “Don’t be a fool, Jaconette,” or “Plenty of time; the Sister is with him, and Ke will be well looked after. Just stay for a bock”; or merely, “I should not go if I were you.” It was not that the men were heartless, or that they wished to desert 'Bettany. But something in Comstock’s face had told them that it would be better for Jaconette’s own sake not to go. But in the heart of the girl there stirred a wonderful pity, bred of love, which seemed to draw her feet towards the studio at the top of the house where Bettany lay. . . ! So she simply said: “My friends,; I am going,” and, gathering her i skirts in one hand as she crossed the! sanded floor, she passed out into the! sunshine and sped away down the j Boulevard. ’ ■ j When she had gone Comstock said very slowly : “It docs not matter now she has gone, but I fear that Bettany is clown with smallpox. Where lie can have got it heaven only knows, but I have never seen the symptoms if < I am mistaken this time.” “You should have told her,” said Jules la Fontaine, slowly. “It would be to ruin her if she caught it, for her good looks arc her stock-in-trade. You should not have forgotten that.” “Maybe, I shouldn’t,” said Comstock slowly, after a moment’s pause. “But Jules, my friend, it would have made no difference. The girl was bound to go, and I knew it.’ “Ab.” said Marie, “we women are fools where you men are concerned, if only you have crept or fought your way into our hearts.”' But nobody felt like arguing the point with Marie, for the gloom of a personal calamity seemed to enwrap the little party in the Cafe des Lilas. 11. Jaconetle’s feet hurried as they had scarcely ever hurried before. She had never hastened to a rendezvous for pleasure as she hastened to this rendezvous —it might be with Death. Over the cobblestones of the narrow street, which took her by a short cut to the Rue Monsieur Lc Prince, there went the click, click of her lugh-heel-ed shoes as she hastened along. People, as she sped by, turned to watch her, wondering what could cause her to be hurrying at such a pace. Several of the workgirls smiled, and more than one whispered to her companion slyly, “Surely she goes to meet a lover.” At last Jaconette reached the shabby doorway, off which many winters’ frosts had peeled most of the original paint, that led into the courtyard and to the staircase by which Bettany’s studio was reached. It was a long climb up, for Bettany, who was not rich although he had a small private income, used to say, with a smile, “I like to live as near the stars as possible.” And when at last she reached the well-known door and rapj ped upon it, she was breathless from ' §te fixe ls»o g, flights of stairs .which

she had climbed and the excitement under which she was laboring. She rapped twice before the doof was opened By a white-coiffed Sister of Charity, whose sweet, sad face wat scarcely less colourless than the spotless linen band with which it was environed. With her eyes the Sister looked at Jaconette, wondering at the beauty of the girl’s face and the look of almost terrified anxiety which lay at the back of her eyes. “What is it you want, my child?" asked Sister Cecilia. “I want Monsieur Bettany,” was the brief, eager reply. “Alas, mademoiselle,” said the Sister, “Monsieur Bettany is ill—very ill —and I scarcely think that you should linger here." “But I have come to look after him,” said Jaconette, almost fiercely, as she realised that possibly this gentle-looking Sister might stand between her and the man she loved. “But it is impossible—” said the Sister. “Not at all, Sister," said Jaconette, interrupting hastily. “I am here—look at me—and I am going to stay and nurse Monsieur Bettany." And then, with a quick glance, she seemed intuitively to know that the Sister had a tender heart, and though set aside from the world in which she (Jaconette) moved, would comprehend; and she added_hastily: “Caunot you understand, “Sister? I lov® Monsieur Bettany. We are friends, and I must stay." For a moment the Sister said nothing. She was thinking of what her duty was. Perhaps, she thought, it was to insist upon the girl who stood defiant before her leaving at once.: And yet in the Sister’s heart, low down perhaps, covered over with vows and buried as it were from the light and from life, lay the prompting heart of a woman who could understand. And so she said at length,very gently: “My child, you scarcely, can know what your friend is suffering from.” And then Jaconette, still standing outside the door in a patch of sunlight which streamed down upon her head and said: “I know nothing, Sister, except that T love him and that he will want me—surely he will want me—and that I have come her® to watch over him." Still, for a moment or two the Si«ter hesitated, and then, doubtful i* her own mind at the wisdom of allowing- her heart to be touched, she said:' “Very well, my child; if what you say, is true, perhaps I have no reason t® prevent your coming." And thus it was that Jaconette entered into the chamber and remained where Bettany lay unconscious L racked with fever, and already hideoua enough from the disease to have driven a stout'heart away that wa® untouched foy a deep, oonsum'in® love. During the next few days Jaconett® and Sister Cecilia fought death for Bettany hour by hour, and unrestingly; and kept it at bay. Every morning the Sister looked into the eyes of Jaconette and Jaconette into those of the Sister, wondering what the issue of life and death would be—wondering if either or both of them would them-* i selves fall ill. They had succeeded, with the doc-, i tor’s connivance, in keeping the nature of Bettany’s illness from the other inhabitants of the house. No one came up the last fight of stairs to the hugh studio and little cupi board-like ante-room which the poet artist rented, and thus up towards the sky the silent fight with death went on day by day, until the victory wa* won, and Bettany was on the fair i road to recovery. But he was blind! (To be Continued.) SHORT ANdToNG COURTSHIPS* Young ladies in Russia are not at all averse to long engagements, and use all sorts of artifices to stave off the wedding day as long as possible; whilst in Siam, 'Where old maids are unknown, as all girls marry, the recognised length of an engagement is on® month. If an engaged man in the Argentine Republic dallies beyond a reasonable time in leading his fiancee to the altar he is heavily fined, and if a resident of the republic should fail to marry he is taxed until he reaches the age of eighty. In no country in 'he world are courtships so abnormally long as in Bohemia, where engagements commonly last from fifteen io twenty years; in fact, there recently died at the age of ninety-nine an old man who had been courting for seven-ty-five years and who was married an his death-bed. ’ABOUT THE EYEBROWS. If you have scanty 'eyebrows and want them to grow thick, the worst thing you can do is to cut them. Thi® applies also to the eyelashes, which, if at all, should be cut during the babyhood—not after. The beauty of the brows consists in their being smooth, glossy and well defined, “pencilled” as tho novelists put it; and they should curve in a graceful arch over tho eyes. Cutting them destroys these qualities, by causing them to grow coarse, stiff and irregular. The best thing to use for promoting a glossy growth is pure lanoline, which may ho applied at night time. This is safe and helps to darken tho hair. It may bo applied sparingly also to the lashes. Gently combing them twico a day, or brushing with a very 6oft brush, will help to train them in the right direction.