FIGHTING HER WAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9703, 28 January 1910, Page 2

FIGHTING HER WAY.

CHAPTER V,—Continued, £ Rosand Marlow had met the f j wealthy Miss Carrol some months { previous to the opening of this tale, j She had graciously thrown wide the j doors of her splendid home to him ov i wishing him to come informally ( whenever he had nothing pleasanter to do. Miss Carrol's "evenings at ; home," and Mr Carrol's dinners and j Whibt parties were not to lie condemned, and Roland dearly loved to j find himself in his old element of luxury and good taste. Consequently, J he fell easily and with the kindest grace into the habit of frequeiitine: the "stone-front" mansion on Fifth Avenue, and the opera*, and the theatre boxes of Miss Carrol. In fact, he was duly installed as friend of the family. j Naturally enough, people began to make comments, for Roland Marlow was too distinguished-looking a man not to attract notice, and Miss Carrol's preference for him over all her admirers was too patent to pass unobserved by lookers-on. Roland himself was the only person who appeared ignorant of this fact. On the evening of his episode with the flower merchant, Roland, with his friend Jack Thorncliff, were on their way to escort Miss Carrol to the Academy. While this laggard knight loitered in the store of Christine Castlebar, Miss Carrol sat dressed atad waiting for her escort in the sumptuous apartment that she called her boudoir. Very handsome she was, in her evening dress of violet velvet and pearls; her black hair and eyes contrasting j well with the fresh, clear olive of her complexion. Haughtiness, that could on little provocation become insolence, was the chief actribute of manner observable in this young lady, who had not always been so rich nor so courted. Her father had made his money almost as suddenly j as Roland's father had lost his—and all the world knows how few people, young or old, men or women, can stand on the dizzy eminence of great wealth after vulgar mediocrity without becoming giddy. This moral vertigo discloses itself in various forms, but chiefly in an assumption of importance, an impatience of contradiction, a vain, offensive air of j condescension, that is for ever and I ever a thing apart from true gentility and a pure strain of blood, that may flow as well in the veins of a peasant as from the arteries of a prince. For the sixth time Miss Carrol had looked at her watch. It was now half an hour past the moment appointed for the arrival of her two firends. Her back eyes were flashing angrily; her red lip was being bitten viciously. It was no common sin to keep the mistress of a Fifth Avenue palace and two million of money waiting, a half-hour. j At last the bell rings. Gertrude rises and draws her ermine-lined opera cloak about feer bare shoulders with the air of an angry queen, and stands with front erect facing the entrance to her boudoir. Evidtntly it is her purpose to wither the delinquents with her glance. But men like Roland Marlow and Jack Thorncliff do not wait easily. They both observed the goddess-like wrath that flashed along the wax-lit space between themselves and her; but both ignored it, and greeted her with the utmost nonchalance. For all response she said, showing her watch: Gentlemen, you are late. The first act must be half over. I will dismiss the cairiage.' 'Are we late?' said Roland ever so sweetly, and comparing his time with hers, added: 'lt is you who are fast, Miss Gertrude. And you can afford to be. but modest fellows like us must be regular. Come, don't let your impatience spoil a pleasant evening. Campan ini is in one of his grand roles tonight, and Guster is always divine. We shall be just in time.' 'I think not,'she answered haughtily, and rang her bell. 'All right, it is nice and cozy here, and one can go to the opera any night.' With this Mr Marlow dropped gracsfully and half languidly into one of the seductive silken chairs, looking so handsome and devil-me-caie as he did it, that Miss Carrol conceived a burning desire to exhibit him at the chariot-wheel in the opera house ■ --so changed her mii.d about ordering the carriage dismissed. She said instead to the servant who answered the bell: 'Ask Mrs Turner to have supper ready for us at twelve and fetch my teal rug. Come, gentlemen.' She swept regally enough to the hall and the two men winked at each other behind her back as they dutifully attended ner to the carriage, where they were all literally enveloped in soft furs. 'Take the back seat with her,' whispered Roland to his friend, after putting Miss Carrol into the carriage. •Jack obeyed and Roland let him do all the talking, while he leaned him-

BY ROSE ASHLEIGH. «* . 1 Author of "Eleanor's Luck," "The Widow's "Wager. |» "Pure Gold," . 3 Etc, etc. /

self back to "let his thoughts drift to Christine Castlebar's humble little store, and see again the vision of her tender beauty that had moved his heart to the core. The scent of the rose she had fastened in his coat seemed to link his senses to her sweet, flower-like presence. He let himself dream of it till he forgot where he was, of whose vanity he offended by his silence. They were at the Academy before he returned from his spiritual journey. Almost mechanically he offered his arm to Miss Carrol, and when arrived in the box overlooking the stage he again permitted his friend to take the burden of conversation. 'What ails you to-nighr, Mr Marlow?' asked Miss Carrol, with some heat. She had been trying for ten minutes to recall by her look the wandering fancy of Roland, who sat with his gaze on the stage, but i his sight turned inward on some far different scene to that being played out on the boards, where the heroes and heroines of mythology disported themselves for the delectation of a nineteenth century audience. Roland roused himself from his discourteous reverie, his languid eyes lifted reluctantly to the flushed face of his hostess. He thought it had never looked so hard, and bright, and unwomanly as to night—perhaps because the one his memory had just quitted was so ineffably soft and pleading. 'Nothing is the matter, thank you. Why do you ask?' 'Only that I imagined there must be a serious cause for your singular abstraction to-night. I never j knew you so quiet.' I 'Didn't you? Well, nevertheless. llam so sometimes. A man cannot always talk well, and when he feels his disability, he had better hold his tongue.' Roland accompanied these remarks with one of his brilliant, coaxing smiles that seemed to have an irresistible power against feminine anger. Miss Carrol's brow cleared; and tapping his shoulder with her gold-and-pearl fan, she said, showing he"r fine, white teeth: 'humility is not one of your virtues, sir, and it does not sit well on you as a mask for some other feeling that you are tiying to hide from me. But some eyes are very hard to blind.' This with a droop of the black lashes, a tender intonation of the voice. These significant manifestations did not escape the practical eyes of Mr Marlow. He had flirted too long and too recklessly not to know just what they meant. Some other time he would have played with them as a wild boy loves to toy with dangerous tools; but to-night he seemed to recoil from the voluptuous splsndor of this woman's beauty. It was like the hot glare of a midsummer noon to him after "the delicious dewy fragrance of a starlit evening in June. When a man has once encountered in flesh and blood the likeness of his j dream woman—that exquisite ideality that visits his soul when that soul j is nearest to heaven—all other types seem to jar upon his tremulous fancy. \ Besides the one, so fine, all others seem so coarse.

It was this that made him move his chair a little way, so as to be out of range of Gertrude's fan, whose heavjj! perfume annoyed him. Rousing himself, he began to talk in his brightest fashion, but his wit was edged with the underlying restiveness in his heart. His laughter was cold and sharp; his bandinage pricked like lance points, till Jack exclaimed: 'Why, Roland, I never knew you so ill-natured. I think there must be a thorn in your rose'—pointing to the bouquet in his coat —'that pierces you.' " At this allusion to the rose, Roland's face flushed violently. Miss Uarrol saw it, and made a note of it; she determined to follow up this clue. Roland conquered his embarrassment almost instantly, and replied gayly: 'My dear Jack, didn't you know that I had become invulnerable to the point of a rose thorn? I've been pricked by them to the degree that induces callousness. Only am I sensible to the perfume of the flowers.' If there is on thing more than another that stimulates the fancy uf a woman for a man, it is to find him quite able to oear their frowns with equanimity, a"d resist her smiles with philosophic calmness. On this principle, Mias C irol found her3elf more anxious anu. determined on captivating Mr Marlow to-night than ever before. His coldness was fuel to her infatuation, and the suspicion awakened by Jack's allusion to the rote in his coat was a goad to her vanity that quite drove it beyond pruderce. Her whole aspect seemed to glow with the warmth and intensity of her purpos?. As Roland turned his eyes from the stage to address a remark to Miss Carrol, the expression on her face hushed the light word on his tongue, and for the first time in his life, Roland Marlow felt awed by a woman's eyes. TO BE CONTJNUED