LOST BY A KISS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 146, 21 June 1901, Page 6

LOST BY A KISS

(Br VIRGINIA VAUGHN.)

CHAPTER IV. THE KISS.

„ . ■ I •■ Charlotte Carring'ton was a profi- 1 cient in the art of intoxicating-" a arum's senses and making him her rlcvoted slave if he once came under her influence. Her large, voluptuous style of Jbeauty helped her in this, and a certain assumption of childlike innocence rivetted the spell, and made her adorer believe her to be the most perfect of women. Egbert Akierson was completely infatuated; he thought there was no ivoman so good and pure and beautiful as the one who had promised to be. his wife; and he was so anx3ous to give proof of his devotion to her ttuit he more than once asked her, half in jest and half in earnest, to tieinnnd something of him for her sake.

Charlotte laughed, and the laugh jarred unpleasantly upon his ears, as she said:

'"Perhaps you fwould ilike me to throw id y glove into a, den of lions and. bid you fetch it?"

"You would not ask me to do anything 5;o foolishly and uselessly dangerous," he replied. "Wl/.o knows? I might," she replied (Ivith a singular smile; "I am not such a pie»>e of perfection as you imagine."

"You are the most perfect woman in the world to me," he answered "fondly; "and anything you like to ask £>f me 1 will do."

"Anything?" she questioned, quickly, and t/aere was a gleam in her eyes .that. naig;ht have warned him of danger. "Yes, anything," he replied, recklessly. "You would not ask me to fcreak iilia law?"

"No, I would not ask you to break •the ki,w." she, repeated; "but I will put yon to the test. You positively ■promise to do anything I ask of you?" "Ytys; even to picking a quarrel .with my dearest friend." "It won't be quite so bad as thai," ishe replied mystei^ously; "but, I ■shall claim the fulfillment of your promise." "Do so. What is my task to be?" _ '"I caß.mot tell you now; and it fwcm't be anything1 very dreadful," she added lightly.

"Whatever it is, I will do it; and in •return I shall claim a promise from you."

"Yes. What promise do you want?"

"That you will tell me tie day upon iwhich I shall "be the happiest of men."

She drooped- her wax-like eyelids .over the lovely eyes that were so brightly Mue and so cruelly false, and she said, with what would have seemed a simper in a less beautiful woman: "There Is no necessity for hurry." "Not: for hurry, dear; neither is there for delay."

"No," she assented, with seeming Teluctattce. "Well, shall it be—shall it be -■—"

The entrance of Isola left the sentence, forever -unfinished.

"Ah! Mr Aldersori," said the sleepy>yecl girl, giving- him her hand, "how

do you do? You are coming to our Christmas party, of course!" "Yes," he replied, genially; "I am like one of the family." "That is time," assented Isola, ''and as you axe 'in the firm,' as it were, I'll take you into my confidence." "That is very kind of you," laughed the young man. "Perhaps you would like me to go away while the confidence is imparted," .said Charlotte, in a tone of sninoyanee. "No, (}c^r; there is not the least I necessity for anything of the kiucl," i replied Isola. blandly; "my confidences are not compromising to myself or to other people." I Was it fancy. Egbert Akierson wonI dered, or wa« there a certain emphasis, a sort of hiddffn meaning, contained in the dark girl's words.

Whether there was or not. Charlotte made no reply, and Isola continued:

"I have a, deeply-laid plot in my mind, which I don't mean to divulge at present; in furtherance of it, however, 1 want to invite General Gorst to our Christmas party."

"And d 0 you find that difficult?" asked Egbert.

"Yes, very," was the answer, "for M."ss Arden won't, invite him, and yet I am determined he .shall come. There is a chance that it may not need any management on my part, for I invited him in Miss Arden's presence, at the Granthams, and Lord and Lady Shelley are coming to us, so of course any guest staying with them would come likewise; the worst of it is, I told him we would send him a card of invitation."

"Send him one and say nothing about it," said Charlotte promptly.

But Isola shook her head; this was rather more than she dared to do.

"If you don't send him a card of invitation, I will," said Charlotte, recklessly. "Aunt hasn't fold me that she won't invite him, and I should like (to have him here; he is a wonderfully i picturesque man, and helps to furnish a room capitally." "One good use to put a man to, at any rate," laughed Egbert. "After i that remark I shall feel thankful that I am not picturesque." "Oh! you're not so bad!" said Isola, in a patronising tone, which excited the mirth of Charlotte to an unreasonable extent. . But Egbert took the observation amiably enough, and then the trio began to discuss the details of various preparations for the forthcoming entertainment. "You are going to the north, on a visit to some friends, immediately after j Christmas, aren't you, Egbert?" asked Isola, as the young squire was about to leave the girls. "No; Charlotte wishes me. not to go, and my lady's will is law," he replied brightly. Then he went away, and the two girls, as if by mutual consent, avoided every topic that could in any way be considered personal. They ■ had plenty of occupation for the next few days, for n party on the scale of the one Miss Arden was about to give is not arranged in a day, particularly in an out-of-the-way place like Littledone.

Christmas Eve came at last, and with it the guests bidden to Miss Arden's party. All the best people in the countryside were here, and conspicuous among them all was General Gorst.

He had called at the Cedars after the party at Grantham Hall, but the ladies were out at the time, and consequently this was the first time he had really been in the house. How he came to be there was a puzzle to the hostess, for she had been particularly careful to omit his name from the list of invited guests, and consequently she supposed that Lord and Lady Shelley, in whose house he was still a guest, had brought him, feeling assured of his welcome.

"He hi determined to re-open the past," she thought bitterly. "Ah though I had not suffered enough in the days grow by. Hut iam n<" long-or a fond' and foolish woman. The hopes und fears Th;it racked me hi the past would scarcely move me now. liis power is gone— gone with the love tlmt is now like a dream; and us for any ■lcg-nl lie— -■' She smiled bitterly, and with .sametiling- like angry defiance in her face, and looking up, met th« eyes of General Gorst fixed upon her.

He turned his head quickly and began to talk to Isola Lang-ford, who at that moment came toward him.

The sleepy-eyed girl very readily responded. She was one 0/ the hostesses of the occasion, and she felt it a duty as well as a pleasure to entertain the g-uests. Still, she need not have devoted herself so very pointedly to the general's amusement, Miss Arden thought with displeasure, for something very like a flirtation, if it merited no more serious name, appeared to be going on between the grey-haired soldier and the darkeyed gdrl, who was certainly young enough' to be his daughter. "Is-ola seems to be setting her cap at the Indian hero," remarked Charlotte to her aunt when the evening was not more than half over. "It is to be hoped that he has not left a wife behind him somewhere in his wanderings. It would be very inconvenient for Isa if she married him and a coloured lady turned up one day and claimed him, wouldn't it?" "Very," was the cold response. But. she could not be so foolish nor he so wicked."

"Wicked!" repeated Cliarlolte in surprise. "Yes; lie is old enough to be her .father." "That can scarcely be considered a crime," laughed Charlotte, "and, old or young, he is a very fascinating man." Her aunt made no reply, but turned away. The subject was evidently displeas* ing to her. • "Now for my experiment upon Violet Vestair," thought Charlotte, with a malicious gleam in her eyes. "Somethin* is the matter with the girl," she continued to muse. "She is more reserved in her manner than usual, and she seems to shrink away from Egbert, when he is near her, though her eyes follow him wistfully when he is not looking. I believe she is in love with him and-I'll find out if sne is or not. I have heard her say that she considered a kiss too sacred a thing to be given or received lightly, and for that reason she never allowed a man to kiss her. She shall be kissed this evening, I will promise her, and I'll watch the effect. Some women might be afraid to put their lovers to such a test, but I know Egbert is safe enough." Then she went into a smaller room

which led out from the larger drawing loom, and here she found a large bougli of mistletoe.

Wry rarefully she selected and broke oft" a small spray from the branch. i

As she did so a slight shiver passed over her frame, and had she been superstitious, or even had she been wise, she would have abandoned her mean and cruel purpose.

But she was neither, and she glanced toward the windows, muttered something about a draught and the carelessness of servants, and then, with the fateful spray in her hand, she went back to the larger rooms.

Several of the older and more distinguished guests were going down to supper, and the younger people found more space for dancing- in the room set aside for I hat purpose. This was the rime Ohurloltc. had waiied Cor. llcv keen eyes showed her Kgfbwt Mclci-HOn leanJng against a doonvay talking to Violei Vcstuir.

With hor quick liabit of taking in B. sitmuion :U a glance, Cluirlottr Iruww •tlnit il>'-' farirl ha<l Tet'u.sccl tx> dance with the man who was tulking to her. and of whom she seemed half afraid.

"She is like the moth hovering: about a candle," muttered Charlotte, disdainfully. "The idea of her daring to care for him when he is engaged to me, and then to set, herself up before us as a model of propriety. _ I shall never forget the way in which she opened her eyes, and the horror that came over her face when she saw me near the old jetty a couple of months ago with Jack liadeliffe kissing me. She pretended not to recognise me, but I have known by her face ever since that she did so."

She went forward toward her intended victim, who at her approach turned to Isola Lang-ford, who was standiug near, and began to talk with her, leaving Mr. Alderson to devote himself to his fiancee.

It required a little management on Charlotte Carrington's part to get her forces together, but she succeeded at length in taking Egbert into the small room where hung the mistletoe from which she had broken the spray. "What do you want, my darling?" he asked, seizing the opportunity to take a lover's' privilege and steal a kiss.

"I want to claim the fulfilment of your promise," she said, with a strange light in her bright blue eyes. "Yes," he said wonderingly; "what do you wish?"

"You will do whatever I wish?" she questioned, steadily. "I haye already said 1 would." he replied, in a slightly offended tone. "Then take this," she. said, handing him the spray of mistletoe, "and kiss Violet. Vestair under it."

He took the spray with its three berries in his hand mechanically, and looked at the girl before him in mute wonder.

It was difficult to believe the evidence of his own senses.

When he made the promise which he was now asked to fulfil he hud expected to have something of importance asked of him, something, perhaps, that should be for their mutual benefit, and the present request literally, for the moment, took his breath away. .To kiss a girl under the mistletoe on Christmas Eve was a very trilling matter under ordinary circumstances; but to kiss Violet Vestair was a very different matter, particularly as that young lady had on one occasion emphatically expressed her objection to such a proceeding. "Kiss Violet Vestair!" he said, at length, looking at the mistletoe he still held in his hand.

"Yes," said Charlotte, with a mocking smile on her lips. "You said you would do anything 1 asked, and [ ask this; it is not a very terrible task, after all." "Not if the lady were willing; but you know as well as I do that she would never forgive me for taking such a liberty."

"And you value her forgiveness more than the fiulfilment of your volunteered promise to me?" asked Charlotte, l^r blue eyes ablaze, and some of her rude character revealed in her face.

The. man was surprised and pained, but he said quietly:

"It i 9 like offering an insult to a woman to kiss her against her will.".

"Then, after your vaunted devotion to me. you refuse to keep your word?" she asked, loking at him with curling lip and flashing eyes.

"No," he said, in a low, intense tone, "I never break my word, and I will keep it now." But his lips were1 set firmly, his brows were contracted, and he looked like a'man who was doing battle with himself or with some subtle enemy.

Charlotte was about to speak,

She was, in' truth, a little bit afraid of the part she was playing, and of the effect it 'might have upon the future; but she was a woman who hated to turn back from any purpose she desired to accomplish —a "woman who, never would admit herself to be in the wrong, and she was likewise greatly irritated at the consideration for Violet's feeling which Egbert seemed to have in a stronger degree than the desire to please herself.

So, though prudence warned her to pause and to absolve her lover from his rash vow, the desire to carry her point kept her silent, and she followed him slowly into the larger room.

As fate would have it, Isola and Violet were only a few yards from the smaller room, those guests who were not at supper being in the rooms beyond, in full view, yet not near enough to hear what was said, and most of them were too much absorbed in dancing, flirting, or conversation to take much notice of the three girls and the young man who stood apart from them.

A look of triumph, with just a shade of apprehension, came over Charlotte C»rring"ton's face as she sa-^ Egbert Alderson go up to Violet Vestair, and, with a strange look on his face, and a certain dejection of manner, speak to th*e girl. What his words were the .woman who watched the couple so eagerly did not hear.

But what she saw was this: Violet gaye a start of surprise when Egbert spoke to her. Then her face flushed, and she looked at him for a moment with widely-opened eyes, in which. there was surprise, almost amounting to terror.

The next instant the young man had clasped an arm round her slen-

der waist, and was holding the spray of mistletoe overhead, and their lips met.

Met in one Jong kiss

Charlotte's triumph gave place to a feeling of maddening jealousy, while Isola, who stood by, and who guessed the state of affairs, looked and felt, for Violet's sake, furiously indignant.

But it was the behaviour of the principal actors in this scene that disappointed and infuriated beyond expression the woman who had planned it.

"She seems as though she liked it," she sneered, in a tone loud enough for Isola to hear.

"It is to be hoped she does; it was a mean :ind contemptible thing for him to do," said Isola scornfully, as shf fumed away.

The whole scene had scarcely occupied three minutes, and the person most surprised and bewildered at it was Violet, Vestair herself;

Egbert Alderson's pleading a.pology before he clasped his arm round her had Juirdh been understood by herself until his lips met hers, and theu all the love that had for months been buried in her heart seemed to overwhelm her, and made her passive and almost responsive when .she knew she ought to have been indignant. Indeed, she was not sure that she had not returned the kiss, and when she afterwards thought of the possibility of this she felt as though she could never look upon his fi.ee again.

And a verse that tor days past .seemed to have been ringing in her ears with sad monotony now came back to her mind with a deeper and more personal meaning:

"Alas, how easily things go wrong-

A sigh too deep or a kiss too long. And there comes a mist and driving- ra!rv And life Is never the same again."

iNo; life would never be the same to her again from henceforth, for the lips of the man whom she secretly loved ■had been pressed to hers, and, though it was at the bidding of her successful rival, the deed could never be undone.

For the rest of that evening Egbert Alderson kept away from the dancers, and he woujd have avoided Charlotte had that been possible.

But it was not

That young lady felt that she had overshot her mark, and she knew that she must exert all her powers of fascination to lighten the hold upon her lover, whom her own eoaduct had almost set adrift.

But Mr Aklerson was not in a humour to be fascinated. He felt that he had been compelled to behave as no gentleman should have behaved to a lady whose sentiments about such conduct were well known to himself, and he considered himself disgraced in consequence. So, though Charlotte got him back to the small room, on the plea of having some-thing to say to him. and though she excused herself, treating the whole matter as a joke, and expended all her blandishments upon him, it was in vain. He was not to be charmed back again into his old condition of slavish infatuation.

And meanwhile, Jack Radcliffe was outside the house in the falling snow, watching through the windows of this very room, and was vowing hatred and vengeance against the man who, having won this peerless woman, mow seemed to scorn her. Even Charlotte did not know how Jack spent this Christmas Eve.

(To be concluded.)