THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 304, 28 December 1907, Page 3

THE STORYTELLER.

TWO DAUGHTERS OF ONE RACE (By Grace Ellery Chanuing.) The elerk at the hotel desk answered Felicia's question with his u=ual smiling urbanity. Yes, the Signorina had gone out some minutes before; adding, as-he handed her room-key, "with the Signor." "The Signorina," he furtlier added, "was just in time for the sunset";—] and it was the unconscious malignity of that final thrust which Felk-ia still quivered under, when, up in her room, she cast aside her hat-and parasol, and, sinking into the chair by the window, gazed stonily out at the golden expanse of lake. Was it going to he as it always had been! The uliock of the question turned Felicia's face suddenly to middle age; the gurnet, for which she had been.in time, brought cruelly out the tine worn liars about her eyes and temples. She Herself had sent for Kathryn. In this extraordinary thing which had happened to her, she had felt tile need of

Kathryn to confirm her own assurance, as it were. They had only been separated three months, but "that had been long enough for the extraordinary thing tj happen—the thing which she had believed to be beyond the possibility of' happening in her life. Not that there was anything in Felicia herself naturally to preclude -u!i happenings; they had, indeed, been rather plentiful in her youth": but always at the crucial moment Felicia her-elf had drawn back; she had never felt quite sure enough. There had been a good deal of drawing back altogether, in Felicia's life; here was not a nature to hurl itself headlong into the doubtful places of being, and there had l>ecn somcl>ody or

something to consider; she had lwn con Ktantly stepping away, or aside, as *hj saw it, in favour of others. And into the gaps thus left open it Wa» curious how many times Kathryn kad as lightly stepped. There was nothing which inclined to drawing back in Kathryn'» temperament; her every movement was a forward one. generally with the effect of a considerable impotiu behind it.

When it had been a question of accompanying an aunt to China, and Felicia, her trunks already packed, knew kudden scruples at parting with an invalid mother, it was Kathryn- who packed over-night and went. When is. bad been a question of the cousins going to Paris to study art seriously, it was Felicia who hesitated before so grave a life-decision. Had she. after all. the justifying talent for forsaking all who dci {tended upon her in varying degrees, and changing the whole current of a life? It was Kathryn, impecunious and doubtfree, who went. Incidentally, it was Felicia who helped her to go—and this had been their relations all their live-. Kathryn had done unexpectedly well in Paris; if she had not demonstrated her- - self a genius, she had abundantly justified herself in a growing gift for portraiture; she found already a modest market for heads, and looked forward — ■with Kathryn's vision—to larger futures. And from this hopeful eontempla-

tion Felicia herself had summoned her. for her own nameless need. In the little Italian lake-village where Felicia .was passing the summer there was good sketching, and there were young people •—the fblf -playing, tennis-playing kind: Kathryn could sketch and golf and play tennis, while—Felicia blushed as she left the sentence unfinished. There was no real reason why she should have blushed. Cloudsley's devotion was an unconcealed, unmistakable fact. Felicia's years did not separate her from the other young people with a greater finality than Cloudsley'* quality •s a poet separated him. From the first day of his picturesque appearance at the hotel, he had singled Felicia out with that directness which was a part of his charm, ignoring with an equal simplicity the flattery of appeal from every pretty girl in the hotel, dazzled by the rising of a literary sun. Felicia and he drew together by an irresistible attraction. She had thought of him at first a* almost a boy; for Cloudsley, it was not in his nature to think of age at all in connection with a woman sa^delightful. Everything.alwut her pleased his sensitive taste and satisfied his mind. In

her indulgence towards his youth shhad given him a- better appoTtnnity "to _Jhww her than she gave to other men, putting up no defences; and it was not until they had sat and walked beneath many suns and moons, in a deepening intimacy of companionship, that she suddenly realised that he was not so much young as ageless. And he was poor and great. It had not yet ceased to lie to hiti a kind of genial miracle that the world permitted him to make a meagre living out of the work it praised, and it was a part of his charming nature that he bore it no groudge for its tardy permission; it was not in him to l>»afc anybody or anything a grudge. If it had been, he might have grudged the advent of Kathryn, as an interruption. Felicia, vividly alive to catch their mutual impressions of each other, had noted with amusement Uoudesley'-, impersonal scrutiny of her young cousin—the wideeyed look with which he searched by in Btiact every human document that came his way; she had seen his straying glance arrested once or twice, by Kathryn's bright ruffle of rebellious hair—hair avitally full of colour as Kathryn herself. Felicia's own hair was beautiful in another manner, fine and brown and -.of;,

and she had felt kindred expressions in i'loudaley's eyes wuen they r «=ted on it. As for Kathryn's impressions of the poet, she frankly pronounced him the moat beautiful creature she had ever Been, explaining in terms of the art school the reduction of this beauty into a matter of facial angle, caves of the rye and certain modellings. "l'cs, dear," answered Felicia absentJy; she was thinking of the dark wells in those caves and the stare that lighted them.

Kathryn's aspect seized, the poet was done with her; and when she appeared a fixed fact in their solitude of two, he had instantly ehown a transparent shadow of unrest and discontent, causing Kathryn to look in her turn a silent question from her urasin to him ami back again. Then she liad smiled a little. The next morning she declined Felicia * invitation to go rowing with them. Pleading a mood of work, she had gon • off alone with her sketching traps, and

they had a perfectly beautiful morning on the lake—a morning in which the nugpoken word hovered so near that Felicia, found herself fending it off in a sudden insane panic of delicious terror - terror of her very longing for it to i»spoken. I Why had she done so» why had -h- - let him speak! she asked her-elt DOW in the passionate review, and grow in/ cold, answered heiwlf—"Because—if that were all—it vva-n't •worth the having."

That had been their most beautiful morning. <>n their way home they had come across Kathryn, her hat ea-t on the ground, painting with ardor Cloudslev, in the little -ting of the rebuffed mood, had stopped to talk with her. and presently F'elicia had made an excuse to leave them and hurry on to | the hotel in a kind of unhappy linppi-

ness. She was bitterly angry with her own perversity-but there wolll<l ~e '". morrow; anil with the prescient j»y of that to-morrow came a terror of tli.it jov. Was it, after all, too soon- too hurried, too hurried for liimt She was eo much the older: ought the not to lie also the wiser—wUer for him. True, ahe had persuaded herself that the difference only made for an increased capacity of love, devotion, understandingon her side. And *he had been "lad that he was poor. He had never thought <•' her money, and—what was a good deal J more significant of the man—noliody el-:' would ever think lie had thought of it: Inn Felicia had thought; it was one of h.-r a«aets. enabling her to do so much for him that rde- would have so mud, joy in doing. The unspent mother in Felicic. that long defeated maternity of the heart which enters into aji elder Inv so much more profoundly, had taken this too into account. JSnf ha I she perhaps overestimated that account in her own favour? He had -iid,b-nlv look ed so voting there ln-idc K.itlirvn: and Kathryn had looked «i young. 01, -,i was neees-.irv to lie vitallv -lire o; .1 thine like thi-!

Her manner of tearing him free ,ia- 1 lo withdraw herself into a spiritual .lis tanctv If she let him fee-let him eve, espei-t how much she eared, that would ,i.t l>e leaving him free. Tie -lioubl have «verv ehanci —evn the .-hance to ,h nigo. j "And if he can change T do i,e want 51i.it kind of love." said Felicia. ..roinlly niiser.ible, to herself.

Nothing she could have d.-v-cd would j „ W e have baffled a temp,"-un-nt the don-J-vley's Ttmi,hM,..,ueo,o l,er] m e„-.hat they mily pri/ed what I must fcht for: ,t was the exact unfrut'i •f flo.il'-'l.-.v. He on'v prized .haf which w« "ivi-n: fie verv fiillne== », the gift »■»"«.■■• sti "^i an, vjr- v fcim. It tad I' ■ a the genwodty of their

relationship which had made it wonderful to him and made Felicia, wonderful. He had had his dreams of such a woman. Now that on whatever side he approached her he found her wrapped in an impenetralile veil, so fine and slight that he could not say of what it consisted, hut so tenacious that it baffled all nearness, he was first perplexed, then wounded, then indignant. What had he done that she should change like that? Was she no more than ordinary woman after all 1 Xow and again, since Felicia was I in truth exactly like that—ordinary wo- ! Man—the old tires escaped a moment and burned alluringly in even or voice, anil he drew eagerly nca/cr; but if they parted on that nearness, half an hour later Felicia would descend the stairs wrapped anew in an extra fold of the impenetrability which turned him cold again. She was "leaving him fres-' once more. But to-day she had gone much further.

-At lunch, Cloudeslcy, transparently restless, had talked with Kathryn, hut looked at her—Felicia.. At last, the persistent gaze had caught her own: lie had instantly leaned forward and addressed her.

" Will you go to-night to sec the sun set on the lake?'' And Felicia hid answered carelessly while her hands clutched the napkin ii her lap to stop their trembling "1 am .-orry-but I' shall hardly In back from town in time." The look in his eyes followed her al the way upstairs. Kathryn also followed, and. closing the door behind tliein. faced her cousin with uncompromising directness. "Felicia." she said, "do you know what you are doing?" Felicia, who was .busy spearing her hat with a lout' hatpin, answered from the refuge of its veil—

" I am getting readv to go to town." The -coriifuHitlle gesture which was Kathryn's sole reply made Felicia Hush, but she went on gathering up her parasol and gloves and |iocket-hnok. "If they are m> necessary. 1 will do your errands for you," said Kathryn. "Thank you—but I really prefer to do them myself," replied Felicia cordially. "Have a good afternoon sketching. Kitty," she added, lightly touching her cousin's cheek. " I shall be back for dinner." Kathryn had half stretched out her hand to detain her con,in as she passed her: she suddenly withdrew it and let it fall at her side. It seemed to Felicia that Kathryn's accusing gaze followed her down the stairs as Cloudeslcy"s had followed her up. Slie was back in ample season for ihe sunset: in her h t she had all along known that she intended to be; her eyes leaped hungrily to interrogate the hotel verandah and shady lawn. No one was there. It was the'clerk, who, answering her casual inquiry for her cousin, gave into her hand, not one key, but two.

So it had conic to this—that she sat by the window and asked herself if it was going to tie ouce more as it had always been. She was still sitting there when the two came up the little path from the lake an hour later; when Kathryn opened the door of the room. however, she found her busy writing. "Felicia," she said, standing close beside her and looking down at her with a new expression, "do you know what you are doing';'" Felicia poised her pen above the paper a brief moment. '"I am writing letters, a- *"» i -»«." idle answered a little coldly. And Kathryn without another word closed the door between the two rooms with needless emphasis. ( Felicia bent lower over the sheet, an.l presently a slow tear fell upon the blotting ]iad. v

"A man is not a woman," she th-jught. "He can always make opportunities; he can always end it when lie will." And since he did not make the opportunity, did not emr it, she grew daily more ilk-engaged in manner and more engaged in time. As for Kathryn, her part had lieen taken; with the closing of the door she had definitely closed the whole affair, she persistently refused to*make a third in walks and talks; she made it silently clear that Felicia need expect no help from her. and went off daily by herself sketching. Felicia WW, however, often aware of her cousin's gaze, and soinetiems longed to have it out with Kathryn; but when the moment came she thrust it from her with the energy of an undetermined fear. ft came at last inexorably. At the lunch table, chosen precisely fiir it- publicity, she handed back one day to Cloudsley a manuscript, with some trilling observation in its praise. Kven by her own measure she had said too little, and that little too lightly, because she was so afraid of saying too much—of betraying how infinitely she

cared; and in the triviality of her words something—a certain fire of hunger in the poet's eyes—seemed suddenly to flash and go out. lie took the paper with a bow, and Felicia, sitting back in her chair with a breathless agony at heart. caught her cousin's gaze, brightly and judicially stern. She followed Felicia to her room. "Felicia," she began, without any preface, "are you quite mad! Don't you care to lie loved?" Felicia held herself by an effort which .-hook her from head to foot. "i will not pretend to misunderstand." -he said slowly, "and—l don't care for some kinds of love." Kathryn considered a moment. "You have certainly done your best to put an end to this kind," she remarked. "That is exactly it!" said Felicia. "U can lie put an end to! You forget that I am thirty-eight years old," she added bitterlv. "We'll." said Kathryn calmly. "I should think that was old enough; in another moment she felt she should cry out. "TVh-.it i -hoiild like to know." eonI tinned Kathryn. still calmly, "is how ! much longer this is to go on?" "Since. >v, far a- I am concerned, nothing is going on, I cannot answer your imction." replied Felicia; "and if you please, we will not talk of this any more —ever." • Kathryn stood a moment, looking, not at her cousin, but out of the window. "" You really mean what you say, Felicia*" she a-ked at length, in a changed

vole.. "I do." Kathryn was silent a moment more; then .-he gave her cousin a glance in which Felicia received a quivering iin-pres-ion of many things, including companion. "Verv well." said Kathryn briefly, and walked'away. This lime she shut the door with an extreme gentleness which reverlierated through Felicia's nerves like the thunder of approaching doom. She -at trembling: anil presently, from where she -till .-at, she saw Kathryn i-sue forth with her sketching thing-, and a little later Cloudsley, with bent head, strolled moodily in the op-

pnsite direction. It was nevertheless with the certainty of foreknowledge that -he later awaited their return on the verandah, in the g.dden cud of the day. He wa- carrying Kathryn'- sketching I«.\. and Kathrvn passed her with a little nod. "We met ill the forest," "he said only.

At dinned Kathryn wore her prettiest gown, it was a gift of Felicia's, for Kathryn"s gowns were not many. She .had ci-t a-ide her rummer's studious silence, and .(loudsley and she were al--1110-t feverishly hrilliant: Felicia could In' damli a- she felt. -Which way do you go to-morrow?" ehf heard Cloiidslcy' ask, and felt Katie r;n's deliberate glance at her before

U» answered•To the larchc- Wyond Ihe bend." I -hall come ami cany your things.'' rail'. (loud-Icy. Kathrvn leaned -nddenlv forward. •■Felicia- let Us all go." The under |.:i,e of her voice drew Felicia's eye.-, upward- in -|.itc of herself. •■ Let us make a picnic for once." Felicia did not -brink: her gaze 111c 1 KalhrvnV squarely. -Thank vou." sic siad -lowly, ''but von know that T dele-l pictures. Besides. I am goinji I" town.'' CloudsI lev - -'chair moved bru-ipiely 011 I lie floor. This time Felicia overstayed the sun--et : later she schooled herself to be |,r:-eni at tboi-e golden homc-comincr* into which the two'so quickly fell: sliO m-.-ii wen! with thoin occasionally; it

1 .ime her point of honor. j \- ibo interminable -iinimer near. . it- cud. Kathryn ripened with it into a portrait "f Ihe poet. lint what «i K.i, I,r wa- that -he wa- aU stilled: lit "vas Felicia who wa- now the elieefut. II," di-ciir-ive. More and far mire ri-hlv. ehmiL-ed than cither wa- Ihe pod |,:,„:,.1f: I,'e wa- working cvubcranlW !,„,„. oil.-n lc- Won-hl l'-li-i., Ihe I a i„.,.'t- of piper, anil llicv v-:.- moist and Loa-v. more often than not. from

■'l ~„t them un.ler my elbow =..nev !,„„• in the po-ing." he explained with ~„. „|,i -„„i,v -mile, while he brushed] away the -tains. Tie had long ago forgiven I'elicU everything, (

"Nik- [Mints to music, then," was Feleias smiling comment, the lirst tin,,. • "-" "ItougMtohoJ^ i>-y answered serious y. "She has ~ .., ~,. - rare talent.': J ,lb a UI J ; "Oh, yes; Kathryn J las ...i,..,, „.. - liua said quietly. " U ll- > KatJu-yu had indeed sever,l f , ■ POTUIS Ul) to her ,n , took "'»

»i »i itlifia and turned aw-iv .' ■/'•"• looked and g,v,v still,,',] , ••■ in<t thought was. Lt\ rvn„ ~»«"t. ,i , ! ,,:,?' ,; "" t "™"- i " ->o." said Kathrvn. who-;,, color ...... .S' u 1 •' f* ■;■ ,ii ""'* kn( »" <

I know, ~a i, | Fe,;,.;., ~ , '"" .»!'. « t ling hand, l„,t Katlr■, ™"gi,t it lightly in ~„„,'o f ,„,,.,'" "■ ul ■/Micia-iL isn't |-H ;„„•, ~ Y »"* }■»» l»vd him, but. „1 V(lpar _ ' J.." had loved you would never have slopped to weigh, to think. |„ measure t» l>»: to consider, to remember how n, 'l .;•»» «'orc-a« if that mattered! y„„ would have only thought „ f | |iM , ,'," Ktcad ot making him wretched all those weeks. lint vn „ ~,,„.( | 1(1 , W( ,j, rl)i " Ihinking, considering, Felicia ■; vou a).' ways have done it. llnd ill!rn _, ; ' so-yon would only have banned I,no " sick hj, r r Uhn '' Foli ™' ""■""W bt-r

-erytbing, joiirsclf. \<m ( i on ' t ].„ mv , IQn . (Q .yonrsel,. rVltcia-t,, lei yourself "„„,' And it will as if he were only a man fe ~ the thing to be thought of- not you-or ,„e. 01. Felicia'" 1|,.,- eves '•'" .'"'l'lenl.r over; si ro pp,d hcr c0n.,,,., hands and turned awav H-lieu turned nieelianieallv' claspi,,., he poems; her despairing eves UaVce" led the room, to fall again upon tlm Portrait. The root of l^ r (l esp,i L " erntymg tiling-was th-1 with t, fragments of her broken |jf ( . ; ,i, mi( ,„.,. Kathryn. who had broken it. should be able to justify herself ( 0 Felicia's own inmost self-conviction. It was „ot after all Kathryn who had done (he l\,;„„ o her-.t was her own hideous failure" Kathryn was the elder and the wiserand how much the stronger! Kalhrvi, had somehow seized selflesslv „ <,.]tj <h I>l'-S and turned Felicia's self-crucifixion into something selfishly small and mean Mhryn could We: Kathryn could understand; Kathryn could help- the poems and the portrait were there to I'jove it. And therefore Karhrvi. was !!g....—nothing else mattered. 'Felicia surrendered prondlv. "You are quite right." she said "Xo thing matters but what is bVsf-for him. She added with irrepressible biterness Am] doesn't it ail prove, 100. how right T was?" "Xo." said Kathryn sadly, "it proves nothii-s-exceiit that you are j-on."