Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

Carlo and Mentone and big places like that, but they never think of the ones up in the moun tains. Angel said how nice it would be, if we were rich, to buy toys-baskets and baskets full-and give them away to the children of Eze. Perhaps you are rich. Are you ?" "Richer than I thought, a few years ago, that I ever should be. I used to be poor until I dug and found some gold lying about in the ground." "How splendid ! I suppose the fairies p showed you where to look. Jane says there are no fairies, but I do hope she's mistaken. I wish you would send up some presents to the little children at Eze." "I will, lots, if you'll take them." "Peirhaps we could all go together." "I'm afraid your mother wouldn't care for that." "Yes, she would, because, if you were never unkind to her, like nurse said you were, she'll be most awfully glad to see you again. I shouldn't wonder if she'd cry for joy to have you with us always and take care of us. Oh, do let's go back now, and I'll take you to her! She will be surprised !" "I shouk. think she would," said Hugh. "But, look here, you said she wouldn't get back till dark. We've come to Mentone now. See how pretty the shops are for Christmas. Can't you stop and have some nice hot chocolate and cakes with me and afterward choose a doll for yourself as a Christmas present from your old friend ?" As he put this temptation before her he slowed down the car in front of a shop with big glass windows full of sparkling cakes and ribbon tied baskets of crystallized fruits. Through the windows Rose mary could see a great many well dressed people sitting at little mar ble tables, and it would have been delightful to go in, but she -shook her head. The sun was setting over the sea. The sky was flooded with pink and gold, while all the air was rosy with a wonderful glow which painted the mountains, even the dappled gray plane trees, and the fronts of the gayly decorated shops. The donkey women were leading their patient little animals away from the stand on the sea promenade up to Sorbio for the night, and their dark faces under the queer mushroom hats were ruddy and beau tiful in the rose light. "As soon as the sun goes down it gets dark here," said Rosemary regretfully. "Thank you very much, but I'd rather go home now. You see, i do so want you to be there already, waiting to surprise Angel when she comes in." "No time even to buy a doll?" "I'd rather go home, thank you. Besides, though I should like to have a new doll, perhaps darling Evie would be sad if I played with another." Hugh was obediently turning the car's bonnet toward Monte Carlo, and for the fraction of a second he was foolish enough almost to lose control of it on account of a start he gave. "Evie !" he echoed. It was years since he had spoken that name. "She's my doll," explained Rosemary. "Oh !" said Hugh. "But I don't think she'd mind or be sad if you gave me a doll's house," went on the child, "if you should have time to get it for me by and by--that is, if you really want to give me something fore ' 6 Ohristmas, you know."- - "Of course I do. But, tell me, why did you name your doll Evie ?" He put the question in a low voice, as if he were half ashamed of asking it, and asat that instanlt a tram boomed by Rosemay heard only the first words. "I s'posed you would," she re plied. "Fathers do like to give their little girls Christmas presents, Jane says. Maybe that's why they're obliged to come back al ways on Christmas eve if they've been lost. Do you know, even if there aren't any fairies, it's just like a fairy story having my father come back and take me to Angel in .a motor car on Christmas eve." -"Good gracious!1" exclaimed Hugh Egerton. "Did you say lather 1" "Yes," replied Rosemary. "You're almost like a fairy father, I usaid." So be was her father-her long lost father! Poor little lamb! He. iegan to guess at the story now. There was a scamp of a father who had "not been very kind" to Angel and had been lost or had thought fully lost himself. For some extraordinary reason the child imagined that he-well, if it were not pathetic it would be funny. But some how he did not feel much inclined to laugh. Poor little thing ! His heart yearned over her, but the situation was becoming strained. Unless he could think of some good way out of it he might have ea scene when he was obliged to rob the child of her father on reaching the door of her house. "That's it,/' said he, calling all his tact to the rescue. "I am a fairy father, just as you thought. It's a mistake of Jane's about there being no fairies, only the trouble is fairies aren't so. powerful as they used to be in the old days. :Now, I should love to be able to stay with you for a long, long time, but because I'm only a poor fairy father I can't. We've been very happy together, and I'm tremendously glad you found me. I shall think of you and of this day often, but the cruel part is that when I bring you to your door I'm afraid I shall have t<o vanish." "Oh, how dreadful !" cried Rosemary, her voice quivering. "Must I lose you again ?" "Perhaps I can write to you." Hugh tried to console her, feehing :horribly guilty and helpless. "That won't be the same. I do love you so much. Please don't yanish.". "1 shall send you things-a doll's house for Evie. By the way, you didn't tell me why you named her that" "After Angel, of course," returned the child absentmindedly. "But when you've vanished I" "Is your mother's name Evie ?" "Evelyn. But that's too long for a doll." "Evelyn-what ? You-you haven't told me your name yet." "Rosemary Evelyn Clifford." "Great heavens !" "How strange your voice sounds !" said Rosemary. "Are you ill ?" "No-no! I feel a little odd; that's all." "Oh, it isn't the vanishing coming on already ? We're a long way from our hotel yet." Hugh drove mechanically, though sky and sea and mountains seemed to be seething together, as if in the convulsions of an earth quake. Her child! And her husband-what of him? The little one said he was lost; that he had not been kind. Hugh gritted his teeth to gether and heard only the singing of his blood in his ears. Was the man dead, or had he but disappeared? In any case she was here, alone in M1onte Carlo, with her child, poor, unhappy, working by day, cry ing by night. He must see her at once-at once! Yet-what if it were not she, after all, if the name were a coin cidence? There. might be other Evelyn Cliffords in. the world. It must b^ that this was another. His Evelyn had married a rich and titled Englishman. She was Lady Clifford. The things that had hap pened to . Rosemary's Angel could not have happened to her. Still, he must know, and --- --A know quickly. " r' 'Where do you live, little Rosemary ?" he asked, grimly schooling his voice, when he felt thate euld trust himself to speak. "Tle 'Hotet Pensior Beau Soleil, Rue Gira sole; in the Condamine, Monte Carlo," an - swere.d the child, as if she were repeating a . lesson se had been taught to rattle off by. - bhea~ i she was to most external things, Hugh roused himself to sogtiirprise at the name of the hotel. "Why,- thaiswher Mle,de Lavalette and her mother live !" he exclaimed. "They'e the lad ies AngeI lent the money to because she was so sorry for therm,'said. Rosemary: "I've heard them talking about it with her and saying they can't pay it back. They're angry with her for asking, bi' sh'e had to, you see. When they go past us in' the dining room they turn their backs" Hugh's attention was arreged pow. "Do they:dine, "he asked "evry night F" "Oh, yes-always.' Madenaielle has lovely dresses. She is pretty, but the comtesse is su .an ugly old lady-like Red Riding Hood's grandmother, I thA 'm afraid of her. Jane~ says:her madame a.nd monsieur doni''ei> e 'she's really a comtesse. I had to knock at her door with at lettfrom.,Angel today, for Angel -doesn't knowI'm afrai4~ couldn't ~~jbe(ng glad madanie wouldn't letmie in, for it seemel asif she '4~eat iie up. I knocked and knocked, and when I was going away' saw mademoiselle coming in in a pink dress with a rosy hat." "I think she'll pay your mother back tomorrow,"- said Hugh, re membering the fatness of the pink bag. "She didn't say she would. She was so cross with me that she called me a petit bete and snatched the letter out of my hand." At this Hugh's face grew suddenly hot and red, and he muttered something under his breath. But it was not a word which Rosemary would have understood, even if she had heard. OSEMARY had tears in her eyes and voice when the fairy father stopped his car at the door of the hotel. He had driven so very quickly since -he'd broken it to her that they must part!I "Now, have you to vanish this very min ute?" she asked, choking back a sob, as he lifted her to the ground. Vanish?i He had forgotten all about vanishing. To vanish now was the last thing he wished to do. "Something tells me that I shan't have to-quite yet, anyhow," he said hastily. "I-want to see your mother. Has she a sitting room where I could call upon her or wait till she comes in ?" "We .haven't' one of our own;" saiki Ros?eniary, "but thei-e's a mie old lady who lives next door to -us. on the top flooi- and is very good to Angel and me. She writes stories and things for the papers, and Angel types them sometimes. When she's away she lets us use the sitting room where she writes, and she's away now. Angel and I are going to be there this evening till it's my bedtime, and you can come u with mec if you will. Oh, I'm so'thiankful you don't need to vanish. 'for a little while !" His heart pounding as it had not pounded.for.six years and more not since the days when he had gone up other stairs in another land to see an Evelyn-Hugh followed the flitting figure of the child. The stairs and corridors were not lighted yet. One economizes with electric light and many other little things at a hotel pension, where the prices are "from 5 francs a day, yin compris." osear opened a door on the fourth floor, and for a moment the twilight on the other side was shot for Hugh with red and p spots. But the colors faded when the childish voice said: " isn't here. If you'll come in, I'l go and see if she's in our room." "Don't tell her-don't say-anything about a fairy father," stammered. "Oh, no! That's to be the surprise," Rosemary reassured him she pattered away. It was deep twilight in the room and rather cold, for the eu tus and olive logs in the fireplace still awaited the match. Hugh co see the blurred outlines of a few pieces of cheap furniture-a sofa, three or .' four chairs, a table and a clumsy 1itit ing desk. But the window was still a square of pale bluish light, cut out of - . . the violet dusk, and as the young man's eyes accustomed themselves to the dim ness of the room the room did not seem dark. He was not left alone for long. In two or three minutes Rosemary ap peared once more, without her hat and coat, to say that Angel had not yet come J back. "But she'll soon be here now," went on the child. "Do you mind waiting in the twilight, fairy father The electric light doesn't come on after 5, and I've just heard the clock downstairs strike 5." "I shall like it," answered Hugh, glad that his face should be hidden by the dusk in these moments of waiting. "Angel tells me stories in the twilight," said Rosemary as she. sat down on the sofa by the cold fireplace, and she let him lift her light little body to his knee. "Would you tell me one about when you were lost?" "'ll try," Hugh said. "Let me think-what story shall I tell t". "I won't speak while you're remembering," Rosemary promised, leaning her head confidingly against his -shoulder. "I always keep quiet while Angel puts on her thinking cap." Hugh, laughed and was sileit. But his head was too hot to weai a thinking cap, and no story would.conie at his half hearted call. Rosemary waited in patience for him to begin. "One, two three,", she counted under her breath, for she had -learned to count up to'fty, and it was good practice when one 'wished to make the time pass.. She had just come to forty-nine and was wondering if she might remind the fairy father of his duty when the door opened. It was Angel, of course. But Angel'did not come in. She stopped on the threshold, talking to somebody, or, rather, somebody was talking to her. Rose mary could not see the person, but she recog- I nized the voice. It was that of Mlle. de La- 0 valette. "You are iot to. write my mother letters and trouble -tiabout that money, madame," said the voice, as shrill now- as it could be sweet. "Onds for all, I will not have it. I have followed you to tell you this. You will be paid soon-that is enough. I am engaged to be married to a -rich man, an American. He will be glad to pay all our debts by and by, but meantime, madame, you are to let vs aTone." "I have done nothing except to write and say that I needed the money, which you promised to return weeks ago, or I couldn't possibly have spared it, protested a voice which Hugh had heard in dreams three nights out of every six in as many years. "Well, if you write any mo>re letters we shall burn them unread, so it is no use to trouble us, and we will pay when we choose." ~With the last words the other voice died into distance. Mademoi selle had said what she came to say and. was retreating with dignity down the corridor.. Now the figure of a slender woman was silhouetted in the door way. THugh liead a sigh tand dw a hand thagliniinered white in tb~ dusk agaihst the ar papfer s the wall as it groped for the button of. the electric light. Then suddenly the'room was illed with a- white: radiance, and she stood in the midst of it, young and beautiful, the woman he had loved for seven years. Putting Rosemary away, he sprang up, and her eyes, dazzled at first by the sudden flood of light, opened wide in startled rcgition. "Hugh-Hugh Egerton!I" she stammered, whispering as one whispers in a dream. She was pale as a lily, but the whiteness of her face was like light, shining from within, and there was a light in her great eyes, too, such as had never shone for Hugh on r sea or land. .Once, a long time Y' ago, he had hoped that she cared - - or would come to care, but she had chosen another man, and -.Hugh had gone away. That had been theend. Yet now -what - . stars her eyes were ! One might - gottenst think that she had not for witten; that sometimes she had wihe1frhim; that she was glad k - to see him now. "Lady Clifford," he stammer ed, "I-will you .forgive my being ~' here - my frightening you like this ?" The brightness died out of her face. "Lady Clifford !" she echoed. "Don't call me that unless-I'm to call you Mr. Egerton! And, besides, I'm only Mine. Clifford here. It is better. The other would seem like ostentation in a woman who works." "Evelyn," he said. "Thank you for letting it be Evelyn." Then, his voice breaking alittle, "Oh, say you're a tiny bit glad to see me (To Be Continued).