A Man's Hearth. Eleanor M. Ingram

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СКАЧАТЬ of the book; and as a pendant to that picture had a mental glimpse of Lucille Masterson, lovely, perfect in every line of costume and tint of color, waiting for a man who was not her husband. What would the girl in black think of that, he wondered? Yet Lucille was altogether beyond reproach. She had every right to contemplate a divorce, in view of Fred Masterson's undoubted wildness and extravagance. If only she had not discussed it with him, Tony Adriance, he thought impatiently. If only she had announced her intention to her husband and the world, instead of broaching it secretly to the admirer she had chosen for her second husband! It was horrible to meet Masterson with this knowledge thrust like a stone blocking the way of intercourse. Certainly she lacked delicacy.

      Of course he must go on gracefully. It was very like climbing these stairs; one step taken implied taking the next. But he wished that he had not met the girl in the pavilion.

CHAPTER II

       His Neighbor's Wife

       Table of Contents

      During the next few days, Tony Adriance several times saw the girl in black. But he did not venture to approach or speak to her. It was too soon; moreover, he was not altogether certain that he wished to be with her. She was too disturbing, too concrete an evidence of other possibilities in life than those he had been taught. He remembered the story of the Grecian lake that was only muddy when stirred. Probably those who lived within view of its waters seldom "disturbed Comarina."

      Nevertheless, he always regarded the girl with a keen interest he could not have explained even to himself. He would glimpse her from his automobile in passing, or observe her from the opposite sidewalk as he went in or out of his father's house. She always had the child with her, and always wore the same frock. Usually, she was to be found in the white stone pavilion, established on the curved stone bench with a bit of sewing or a book. He never had imagined so quietly monotonous a life as hers seemed to be.

      It was at the end of the first week after their meeting that Adriance, riding slowly along the bridle-path through the park, saw an itinerant vendor of toy balloons and pinwheels wander into the pavilion where girl and baby were ensconced.

      The sunlight glittered bravely on the gaudy colors of fluted paper wheels, the plump striped sides of bobbing globes, and the sleepy, brown face of the Syrian pedler who mutely presented his wares. The girl lifted her smiling eyes to meet the man's questioning glance, and shook her head with a pretty gesture that somehow implied admiration and a gay friendliness which made her refusal more gracious than another's purchase. The pedler smiled, also, and lingered to hoist the straps supporting his tray into a new position upon his bent, velveteen-clad shoulders, before moving on his way.

      The baby had not been consulted. But his attention had been none the less enchained. Those pink and yellow things set spinning by the fresh morning breeze, those red balloons tugging at their cords like unwilling captives hungry for the clear upper spaces of blue—to see all this radiance departing was too much! He spread wide both chubby arms and plunged in pursuit.

      "Holly!" the girl cried, arresting his flight from the coach. "Why, Holly?"

      Holly hurled himself into magnificent rage. Halted by the outburst, the Syrian turned back with an air of experienced victory.

      "Now you buy?" he interrogated.

      The girl shook her head, struggling to appease the young insurrectionist.

      "No, no. Please go away, and he will forget."

      The man took a step away. The baby's screams redoubled; he stamped with small, fat feet and brandished small, fat fists.

      "You buy?" the pedler blandly insisted.

      "No!" the girl panted. "Please do go. I cannot; I have no money with me. Holly, dear——!"

      Adriance had found a boy to hold his horse, and came up in time to overhear the last statement. He halted the Syrian with a gesture.

      "I have," he made his presence known to the combatants. "Won't you let me gratify a fellowman? Here, bring those things nearer. Which shall it be, young chap—or both?"

      The girl turned to him with candid relief warming her surprise.

      "Oh!" she exclaimed her recognition. "You are very good. I am afraid, really afraid it will have to be both. Oh——!"

      Holly had deliberately lunged forward and clutched a double handful of the alluring wares.

      By the time calm was re-established and the amused Adriance had paid, it seemed altogether natural that he should take his place on the seat beside the girl; as natural as the pedler's placid departure. Holly lay back on his cushions in vast content, two balloons floating from their tethers at the foot of his coach and a pinwheel clasped in his hand.

      "I should like to say that he is not often like this," remarked the girl, gathering together her scattered sewing, "But he likes having his own way as much as Maît' Raoul Galvez; and everyone knows what he raised."

      "I don't," Adriance confessed. He noticed for the first time a softening of her words, not enough to be called an accent, far less a lisp, but yet a trick of speech, unfamiliar to him. "What did he raise?"

      "Satan," she gravely told him. "Maît' Raoul knew more about voodooism and black magic than any white man ever should. It is said he vowed that he would have the devil up in person to play cards with him, or never be content on earth or under it. And he did, although he knew well enough Satan never gambles except for souls."

      "Who won?"

      "Satan did. Yet he lost again, for Maît' Raoul tricked him in the contract so cleverly that it did not bind and the soul was free. There is a great split rock near Galvez Bayou where they say the demon stamped in his rage so fiercely the stone burst."

      "Then Maître Raoul escaped Hades, after all?"

      "Oh, no! He went there, but merely as a point of honor. He was a gambler, but he always paid his losses."

      Adriance laughed, yet winced a little, too. A baffled, helpless bitterness darkened across his expression, as it had done on the evening of their first meeting. He looked down at the pavement as if in fear of accidentally encountering his companion's clear glance.

      "I never read that story," he acknowledged. "Thank you."

      "I fancy it never was written," she returned. "There is a song about it; a sleepy, creepy song which should never be sung between midnight and dawn."

      He watched her draw the thread in and out, for a space. She was embroidering an intricate monogram in the centre of a square of fine linen, working with nice exactitude and daintiness.

      "What is it?" he wondered, finally.

      Her glance traced the direction of his.

      "A net for goldfish," she replied.

      It was not until long afterward he understood she had told him that she sold her work.

      The river glittered, breaking into creamy furrows of foam under the ploughing traffic. The sunshine was warm and sank through Adriance with a lulling sense of physical pleasure and tranquil СКАЧАТЬ