THE LADDER OF FAME.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 147, 18 February 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LADDER OF FAME.

COMPLETE SHORT STORY. (Copyright.) I. ' Then it's true —you are really go- ; to be married ? " The anguish that underlay the !owiken words —the stricken look of the man who uttered them —escaped the tice of the man, who stood with his :e to the fireplace, studying a picre on the opposite wall. But he was t thinking of the picture at all, for his eyes was a dreamy look of hapless that told the watcher all too rely of the 6elf-absorption that enloped him. "Yes," he said, slowly and lingergly, as though he were feeding on e happiness that had cbnio to him. Jes, I am really going tdfie married; d" —turning to his companion—" I d to come and tell you nret, Althea, r we've been such pais, you and I, ven't we?" ... She drew a short', sharp breath, and rned to the window. "When is it to b^—your wedding, I ean?" she asked, iH ii fcfified voice. "In June." He, laugß&T joyously. Jeautiful, leafy Jiiife. What better onth could one fi&ve?" The words fell lse ice bfi the heart the woman, but fought fiercely ith her pain. John Trevqf must not low, he must not even gtiess, what e was suffering. And as she stood by the window, the ight May sunlight down on ?r bronze-hued hair, turning it to ittering threads of. gold, her dark, >lvetv eyes pain-filled atid shadowed, >r cheeks blanched , undbT stress of notion crushed rigidly aown, John revor looked at the bacfi'bf {he shapehead with a reminiscent gaze, and lought of a time when he would have ;emed the world well lost in exchange >r this woman's love. And here he as to-day telling her of his love for, id approaching marriage with, an:her! "Althea I" he cried, and, moving imu!sively forward, he caught her hands ad drew her to a cushioned lounge nder the window. "Do sit down, ear; we can talk so much' better that ay, and —1 want to lell you all about er." . He seated himself by her' side, and ien:—• "Do you know"—witE a little laugh -"it seems so queer telling you all his, because —well,, yptr remember hat I once hoped, don't y6u ?" Remember! Would she' ever forget ? She nodded, and forced .a wan smile o quivering lips; but John Trevor 'as too obsessed to not:ce~her anguish. "I can 6ee now," he went on, leanlg forward and loosely clasping his ands, "that you were right, and I r as wrong. But I adored you, Althea -I gave you of my best five years ago, nd for long enough afterwards; and don't suppose I can ever feel quito he 6ame again; only it was no good, •as it? You would have none of me. r ou said love and marriage were not or you; you were wedded to your art; on wanted to become a great actress; ou never loved me, or any other man; ou only loved your work. Well, I hought it hard at the time, but, after 11, you were right, dear. I don't supiose" yon would ever have stood where r ou are now if you had been weak nough to love me." If she had been weak enough to love lim! Ah. heavens! When every fibre if her body had pulsated with a love ;ept in check for five strenuous, hardrorking years—years that had carried ler to the summit of her ambition and >rought her, as she had fondly imagined. to the threshold of her happiness, low often had she rehearsed the monent when she would say to this nan "John, you may take me now; I lave always been yours, but I had to nount the ladder of fame first. Had I stopped half-way to listen to the alluring voice of love I might never have reached the top." In her presumption she had always pictured him as waiting for her on the threshold, when he would take her by the hand and together they would inter their kingdom. She had never ireamed that he would tire. And this was the end of it all! At one fell stroke the cup of happiness she had so iften tasted in anticipation had been lashed from her lips, leaving her with a, terrible feeling of loneliness and leart-break. For Art she had sacrificed Love, and this was her reward! The irony of it brought a faintly contemptuous smile to the perfect mouth, whilst, with all the will-power she could muster, she crushed back the woman so that the actress might dominate. Ho must never know! was the persistent cry of her aching heart. So, leaning back against the softlycushioned lounge, she forced herself to look into the eyes she loved. "Who is it?" she asked, lightly. '•'Who has captured that susceptible heart of yours now?" He frowned slightly. "Don't talk as though I were a philanderer, Althea," he said. "You know perfectly well that there was never any other but you—until now; but I recognise that my love for you was more worship. You were always unattainable; you never had any feeling for me but that of friendship, had you? And a man wants more than that —he wants what Betty i s giving to me —the love of the one woman for the one man " "Ah! Her nanio is Betty, then?" "Yes," nodded John; "Betty Hazleton — s he is a banker's daughter." " I see" —with forced lightness ; " and you have made the amazing discovery that she is the one woman in the world for you:" ~ , A very tender light crept into the man's grey eyes. "I have," he returned, quietly; "and fe ] ie —that I am the one man. It has taught me, too, the difference between worship and love. I worshipped you, Althea, but—l love Betty." The woman's face went grey, and involuntarily she put up a hand to shade it. Those" low-spoken words, instinct with tenderness and love, were like a knife in Althea Standen's heart; every nerve in her body quivered under the unconscious cruelty of them. "And Betty," she went on, presently "she is, I suppose, very beautiful?'' Not a bit of it. But what do looks matter? It's the woman herself; and somehow you don't think of beauty when vou're with Betty. She has a wav of"reaching the heart without that weapon; she's just like a sweet wild flower —hut surely you remember? 1 pointed her out to you last week in the National O.!W>. She wn> y. 'tl, f. ends, so we d. In't s'op. and - 1 Althea sat up with a |rrk. her beauMil pye* wi'i" with "maze;: 'lit

She remembered the girl well—an insignificant-looking little thing, with an indifferent complexion and badlycut clothes, but she had paid no parti cular attention to her name at the time. "That girl!" she cried, incredulously. "Do vou mean to say that was Betty Hazleton—the girl you are going to marry?" "Why not?" —quietly, but the man s eyes gleamed. He was quick to detect the disparaging note in the other's voice. For a second or two Althea made no answer, for an idea had leapt to her mind which sent a quick flush to her cheeks, a sparkle of excitement to her cyea. "I'll win him yet!" she whispered, exultantly, to herself. " If that's the girl, she'll have no chance against me, if I once make up my nnnd." Then, turning to John, she laughed gaily. „ , "You must- forgive me for being a little surprised, but she is not the type I should have imagined you falling in love with, that is all; but —she looks nice, and—l'm sure I shall like her." John's eyes hone. "I'm sure you will," was his enthusiastic reply. A brief pause, and then, a trifle wistfully "So you wish me joy, Althea?" She returned his gaze steadily. " I wish you and the woman you inarry every joy and happiness," she replied, with slow emphasis. * * * Half an hour later Althea Standen was poring over a packet of letters that five long years ago she had tied together with a cherry-coloured ribbon and locked away in her bureau. They were letters from John Trevor, breathing love and adoration in every line, and when Althea had read them carefully through a 6mile, half tender, half triumphantly, flickered for an instant round her lips. "She will give him up when she has read these," she murmured, 6oftlv. "She will know that such a love, if returned, must inevitably revive. She will understand, and I rather think she's not the kind of girl to tell John that I intervened." 11. "Is Miss Hazleton at home?" The trim maid-servant who appeared at the door of the banker's substantial residence on Hampstead Heath regarded the visitor's lovely face with some curiosity and interest. She knew it well as belonging to Miss Althea Standen, leading lady and tragedienne at the Galaxy Theatre. "Yes, miss," she smiled. "Come this way, please." Althea, a vision of delight in tawnycoloured ninon and lace, followed her conductress along a softly-caipeted corridor until she came to a pcrtiere hung before an open door. Here the girl paused and, drawing aside the curtain, "Miss Althea Standen!" she announced, in important tones, and stood admiringly aside as Althea passed in with a "faint silken rustle and a delicious fragrance of violets. Already in anticipation the maid was describing in detail to her fellowservants the beauty and wonderful clothes of the famous actress, and, bubbling with excitement, 6he dropped the curtain into place and sped away to the kitchen. At first Althea thought- the room was untenanted, but as she advanced and glanced hesitatingly round a young girl rose from the capacious depths of a huge arm-chair and stood for a moment looking wonderingly at her visitor. Then came a glad smile of recognition. " How good of you to come and see me!" she cried, moving forward with outstretched hand. "I've heard such a lot about you. Where will you sit?" She dragged forward a low lounge chair near the open window, and, seating herself in one opposite, looked at Althea with shining eyes. There was something about the girl —so fresh, so unaffected and natural, that Althea could not refrain from smiling back at her, whilst inwardly telling herself that 6he must not be deterred from her purpose. She was clearing her throat after a few commonplaces, and deciding to take the plunge, when the girl broke in, shyly:— "John has told me all about you,' she said, in a low, musical voice; "and —and all that he once hoped you would be to him. I think even now he looks upon you as the most wonderful woman in the world, and I'm not surprised"— naively. "The astonishing thing is that he should ever have looked at me, but I've got to thank you for that." "Me?" gasped Althea. "In what way ?" " Why"—with a shv uplifting of violet eyes, her one beauty—"if you'd returned his love I should not have had much chance, should I? But now" — with a rapturous sigh—" I believe there is not a happier girl than I in the whole wide world!" A spasm passed over the beautiful face of her listener, but it was gone in a flash. "You love John Trevor so much?" she asked, in a strangled voice, whilst her hand flew to the laces on her bosom, where lay a packet of letters tied with a cherry-coloured ribbon. " Love him!" echoed the other. " Ah ! I could never tell you what John is to me." Althea, with a strong effort, beat down her rising emotion and eyed her rival critically. How easy, she thought, to banish that rapturous smile, that look of love, for ever! The tempter was whispering insidiously in her ear, urging her on to the cruel deed that had been in her mind ever since John Trevor's visit to her flat yesterday. She lingered the letters tentatively, and half drew them forth. Why not show them and tell this girl that Althea Standen loved the writer of them as she —puny, insignilicant-looking little thing that she was —could never love him? "Supposing," she said at last, in dry, hard tones, her breath corning a little rapidly—"supposing something happened to take him from you —what then?" The girl's face shadowed, a look of dread clouded the violet eyes. "Don't suggest such a thing!" she cried, and flung out her hands as though to ward off a blow. " 1 think" —with a sobbing breath—" that if such a thing happened it would break my heart." "Break her heart, indeed!" thought Althea, with passionate resentment. "And what about mine?" Again she tried to speak, but something in the other's face—an indefinab'o something —choked the words in

her tliroat, and all she could find to say was that hearts were not so easily broken nowadays. "You say that because you have never loved!'' interposed Hetty, swiftly. Althea's hand closed spasmodically over the packet of letters, a quick rush of colour dyed the creamy pallor of her cheeks, her dark eyes glowed with sudden passion. " Never loved!" —with a bitter laugli. "My dear child, you don't know what you're talking about! How do you know I have never loved?" "I don't know" —in some confusion. "It was just an idea, and" —stammering—" I thought that —that if you had —it —it must have been John." Althea laughed again, but there ra.s no mirth in the sound, only a reckless note that touched the heart of her hearer curiously. "John Trevor is not the only man in the world!" she scoffed. "I'm sorry," murmured Betty, with an uncomfortable feeling that she had blundered. Then, noting a look of anguish in the r/.cs that met hers—"ls he dead?" she whispered. For the space of a few breathless seconds Althea looked at lie:- strangf !y Should she strike, or should she hold her hand? Should she shatter ths girl's dream of happiness and seize her own, or should she turn her back on all she had hoped and longed for for five long years? As she sat weighing the question there was not a shadow of doubt in her own mind that she could draw Join Trevor back to his old allegienee. Sb-3 was sorely tempted, for now that th 3 man she loved iiad pledged himsod to another she found herself longing fo." his love more intensely than at any other moment in her life. Wat wo.ill this g rl's sufferings be compared wi' i hers? A mere nothing! She had known John Trevor for as many months a3 Althea years. How could she possibly feel his loss so deeply? Slowly Althea withdrew the hand that still clasped the packet of lottirs; but before she could fra.ue what she wanted to say into suitable words there flashed before her mental sight a a vision of John's face and the look in

his eyes when he tolif her that lie had found the one woman for the one man : "I worshipped you, Althea, but —I love Betty." The words, so simply spoken, were ringing in her ears again, as they had been through a livelong, wakeful night. Supposing, after all, they were true? She might bring John back to her to her feet —she was certain she could do that—but there would always bo the shadow of Betty between them — the ghost of Betty's dead happiness would be for ever a haunting spectre. Could she dare to grasp her own happiness at such a cost? Then there came to her those other words of John's: "You don't think of beauty when you're with Betty —she has a way of reaching the heart without that weapon." John was right. There was about the girl an indefinable something that attracted even Althea against her will, so that she was filled with a vague restlessness —an unaccountable repulsion for carrying out the object of her visit. And "whilst these and many other thoughts passed swiftly through her mind, Betty, noting the varying shades of emotion that passed over the lovely, mobile face, was filled with quick concern. "I have hurt you," she said. ''l ought not to have asked you such a question." For a few seconds Althea looked at her with the dazed eyes of one whoso thoughts are dragged ruthlessly back to tho present; then, with a quick sigh that was a sigh of renunciation, she thrust the packet back into its hidingplace and. rising to her feet, gazed curiously into the other's eyes. She could not wreck this girl's happiness. She herself had bartered love for fame, and she must pay the price to the bitter end. "You have not hurt me," she said, slow)y; "and —yes" —more s,lowly — "you are right—he—is dead." * * * Oil the evening of the same day Althea Standen was seated in her pretty, flower-scented drawing-room, absorbed in memories of the past. It wanted but an hour before she was to start for the theatre, when a well-known step sounded in the hall, driving the blood to her heart in a swift, painful tide, and setting her pulses leaping madly. With a woman s instinctive feeling to hide her pain, she rose, and when John Trevor entered tho room she was sitting with her back to the light, her face in shadow. He greeted her with the breezy laugh that had never failed to awaken a responsive echo in her heart; but now the plca<uro of hearing it was mingled with a dull, aching pain that was well nigh unbearable. She stifled it sufficiently to welcome him with a very good imitation of the gay camaraderie that had always characterized her attitude towards him. "I went to see your Betty this afternoon," she said, presently. " Yes, I know"—and ho shot her a grateful glance; "I have just come away from there myself. It was good of you to go so soon." "Not at all" —with careless polite-ne-s. "lie wouldn't say that if hu knew why I went," was t"no thought

that leapt involuntarily to her mind; and then, aloud : "I'm glad 1 wfant. I —l think 1 shall like your Betty." "Thank you, dear," he said, quietly. "Your friendship will be one of our most precious possessions." The intimacy of the personal pronoun was torture to the woman who had hoped to share it with the speaker, but she forced a laugh to her lips, as so many women do to hide a breaking heart, and, pushing her chair farther into the shadows — "Do you know," she cried, gaily, "1 think of writing a play?" " Indeed ! "—with keen interest. "What kind?" " Well"—slowly—'" I think it will be a tragedy, and strange to say," with .i little laugh, "I got the idea from you." "From me?" —in amazement. "Yes; some words you spoke yesterday have given me the idoa. My plaj is to be about a woman who sacrificed love far art and ambition, and" — watching him narrowly—"l shall call it 'The Ladder of Fame.' " John Trevor stirred uneasily. "Did she love the chap?" he asked, after a curiously tense silence. "In the play—yes"—with meaning emphasis—"otherwise I couldn't do velop the tragedy part; but I shall tell vou no more"—brushing the subject lightly aside. "You'll no doubt see it acted some day." The man was conscious of a great sense of relief. "Of course," he argued to himself, "there could be no underlying meaning to her words. Besides, had not Betty told him that the man Althea had loved was dead?" He rose to his feet with alacrity, and held out his hand. "Good-bye, dear Althea," he said, "and good luck to 'The Ladder of Fame.' " She looked up at him and smiled. "Will you have supper with me tonight, John?" she asked, gently. "For the sake of old times, and we'll drink a toast to 'The Ladder of Fame' and—and to your Betty." A few minutes more and he wa9 gone, leaving a woman standing in the middle of the room gazing at a closed

door with dry, anguished eyes. 1 Slowly she turned and, with dragging footsteps, walked to a bureau that I stood in one of the recesses made by the fireplace. I From it she took a packet of letters tied with a cherry-coloured ribbon, i and ,making her way swiftly to the fireplace, dropped them one by one in , the empty grate; then, kneeling on the , hearth-rug, she struck a match and set . fire to them. She watched the work of destruction until only a heap of ! charred fragments remained to remind her of all she had hoped, of all she had | lost, and of all she had renounced. She had burnt the letters. Would.to Heaven she could as easily have ob- ( literated all thoughts of them and the wr.ter! But that she knew to be im- ' possible. For every, passionate loveword was indelibly stamped on her memory, as was John Trevor's image , on her heart. I I