The House of Chance

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 299, 16 December 1911, Page 18

The House of Chance

§r Gertie do 8. Wcimt.irorUa-Jaun.es, AUTHOB Of "PINK PUKEET," "WHITE WISDOM;" ZJCBBOJX," "THE PRICE," ETC., PASX UX, ■ ( "Chance will not do the work: Chance sends the breese, Bnt if the pilot slumber at the helm. The very wind that wafts ub towards the port May dash as on the shelves.'*—Scott "I remember your h«Jr—did I tie It? BVor It always ran riot— Like a tangled sunbeam of gold. . . •" —Oscst Wn.de. CHAPTER!. AFTER FIVE MONTHS. London—evening time—and the month of May! A combination of season and environment which—provided there is a normal allowance of health, money, and opportunity to be enjoyed—makes an old man middle-aged, a middle-aged man young, and a youilg man boyish. Gilbert Frayle—whose age was thirty —felt twenty-one. And it is a glorious thing for a man to feel twenty-one pro-: vided he is Well and safely past that most objectionable age of arrogant unformed ideas, undecided shoulders, and indeterminate hairs on a sneering upper. Up \ . ! les, he had reached London, leaving the hard splendour of steel and iron achievements all behind him. A Bridge was growing, growing—he had given it birth and strength and form, and the remembrance of this splendid thing—which had no part with the triumphs of tropical Nature or the wonders of ancient magician-builders of the East—was passior\tely exhilarating. But now ho did not want to remember this creature of iron and steel which would he still young when a thousand more Suns had risen and set upon stretches of mysterious sand and across tombs and temples and palaces of splendid silent kings—he did not want to remember the painted wonders of Ghizeh—or the Go4-given patience of humpbacked beasts who, maybe, are the reincarnated spirits of Egyptian kings and emperors who have sinned—or a great mystic mutilated face of stone beneath which the paws stretched out to receive the sacrifices of a world which is fast learning to forget the glory of sacrifice. At his heart there was no desire for recollection. Towards the past—even the immediate comprehensible past, as well as towards the unconquered, inscrutable post—he was unconsciously antagonistic, as is the way of humanity when humanity is feeling twenty-one and when the future holds everything which matters.

And now as—after arriving at a terminus, and dining, and dressing, all in less than an hour—he made his way to the Duke of Carmine's theatre, Gilbert Frayle knew that ,the future did hold everything which mattered, simply because it held his own complete possession of a girl whose hair was yellow as primrose sundawns over the Nile, and whose eyes were blue as a midday Orient sky. It was Ave months since he had seen her, touched her, or spoken to her, and their letters had been more or less brief and infrequent, as are the letters of people who have things to do in a world where so many people do nothing at all —but yet in spite of absence havintr been comparatively unbridged-over by links of circumstance, Gilbert Frayle felt nearer to "Cecile Clare Kissler," more in need of "Cecile Clare Kissler," more bound to "Cecile Clare Kissler" than when the daily touch of lips and hands had been sweet and close. He wanted "Cecile Clare Kissler" —he wanted his..wife! It didn't matter that she was a yellow-haired Girl-on-the-Stage I —he wanted her for his wife!

And, wanting her for his wife, it was his definite determination that she should become bis wife just as quickly as legal formulae could be induced to change two persons into one person. She would be surprised to see him —it was extraordinarily stimulating to know that she would be surprised to see him, because "Cecile Clare" looked seraphic when she was surprised. What would she say? Well, probably she would say: "My! I guess I didn't know you were coming along so soonl—why didn't you write and tell f ... . Yes, that's what she rested passively in his arms—for "Cecile Clare" was young enough and sweet enough and desirable enough to remain passive while the arms of a lover held her close. It is always a sign of fascination's decadence, a sign that personal allurment9 are becoming frayed at the edges and worn, when a woman meets passion and ardour half-way. More than two-thirds of her power is gone directly she ceases to hold back. In love it is the holding back which is in reality the leading on! When Sir Gilbert reached the stage entrance he walked right in, and let the rickety old glass-paned door bang behind him with all the fearless freedom of a man who can tip and who is ready to tip everybody who shows the least wish or desire to be tipped. He paused before the Tittle indoor window and spoke authoritatively to a hare-lipped youth who, in the temporary absence of the stage-door keeper and his deputy, i*B-s left in charge. '*Has 'Miss Kissler" arrived yetr* "Mith what, thir?" " *Mis9 Cecile Clare Kissler.' " "She'th. away, thir —been away ill in the counthry for the last two or three months!" " "Miss Kissler* away ill? No. no, there must be some mistake." "No, thir, there ain't no mithteke, becos —yeth, whatherwantV (This interruption was addressed to another youth—a cute and dignified youth who bore himself with the official air of a person who felt he ought to be wearing a uniform even if he wasn't.) 'Qliss Dalmancy sent this letter down to be given to Captain Mostrim when he calls." said the dignified youth, handing in a blue envelope addressed in red ink. "All ritrhth." "And don't you forget it, or else there'll be something to be paid by somebody." , .. , , "All righth! —and—'ere —I thay!—l thav. Artemuth!" The dignified youth—who had nearly gene—almost returned. "Yes. nipper, what is it!" "«Mith Kithler' ith away, ithn't the? Thith gentleman wanth to know!" Artemus took stock of the gentleman —and approved. There was an air of definite authority about the gentleman which Artemus knew to be the right thing. . " 'Miss Kissler" "as been indisposed, sir, and staying down in the country this last two—or nearly three—months, sir; she came back the day before yesterday folly restored to 'calth, I am pleased to

statel* he announced, addressing Sir Gilbert after throwing one glance of leraent contempt in tko direction of the deputy stage door-keeper's pro tan deputy. Sir Gilbert sodded, tipped the lift boy, tipped the pro tern deputy boy, and turned away. It had been his intention to send up » note or card! acquainting "Coeile Clare" with the fact of his return; bat now, for some reason which waa hardly a reason at all, tihait intention had changed. Instead, he would watch part of the show and then go round to Southwest Mansions, wait until "Coeile Clare" returned, and then surprise "Cecile Clare." There would be a good deal or rapture to be experienced in the surprising of "Cecile Clare.* Sir Gilbert took a seat, and from the dark obscurity of the last row of the dress circle watched the girl who had ousted that good dream-woman of his" own class whose white long-fingered hand was, in due course, 'to have smoothed away all the riot ruts of his normally immoral bachelor life. But now he had no place for any good dream-woman of his own class—no place at all, and all because of this little girl who sang with the plaintive sweetness of a spring-time robin before dancing dainty, easy little steps which displayed the glitter of tapering paste-studded heels. And as he had watched her fifty times before so he watched her to-night, finding —at least bo it seemed 'to eyes that were ' weary for the sight of cowslip-yellow hair and the yoimg curves of rose-pink cheeks —a new and gracious dignity, an air of sweet half-plaintive weariness which had been absent before he went away. I Even though there were grease layers on her face, and grease blobs on 'the ends of her eyelashes, and grease streaks on her lips, and although she sang little songs which might possibly have meant a great deal more than they appeared to mean, and although her swansdown-trim-med skirt was not of the swathing and concealing variety, Gilbert Frayle—looking from the gloom of the dress circle down on to the brightness of the stage—could see suddenly the ideal young hostess presiding oveT a country dinnerparty composed of canons and bishops and landed gentry and generals and admirals—each and all accompanied by a , rigid, virtuous, unwaved, uncurled, unpowdered wife! "Cecile Clare Kissler* was a yellowharred Girl-on-the-Stage, but she was something more besides. Towards the middle of the last actjust as the Aeroplane Girl was about to conclude matrimonial arrangemeflts with a Martian Duke instead of with a ruling prince from the Milky Way territoryGilbert got up, trod on a selection of middle-class dress-circle toes, lert the; theatre, and taxied to Southwest Street, speculating as he ■went on the subject of "Cecile Clare's two or three months' absence from the theatre. , Why had he not been told that she was ill? Why had she not when writing one of her brief infrequent little notes said she was writing from the country? And what part of the country? Where had she been staying in the country ? Gilbert asked himself these question almost without knowing he was asking them—for the type of man who never lets himself go would not wish to commit the emotional indiscretion of betraying mental curiosity even to himself. That type of man is very punctilious about his own opinion of himself. The. taxi hurried, and Gilbert reached the fiat a quarter of an hour before midnight. "Good evening!"'he said, speaking almost pleasantly when Magot opened the door. Margot made a little two-syllabled exclamation that was entirely French welcoming, and astonished! " Ah!—sir!—' Miss Kissler,' how it will be surprise for her!" she cried, as Gilbert stepped into the. hall. "Yes, I will expect it will. I didnt think I should be back before next week. How is 'Miss Kissler' now?" "Ah, sir, she is much better now—■ quite well and better now—but she was not so not-well and feeble and four time fainted before ze doctor said she must be with the air of the country." " I haven't heard anything about it—l ought to have been told." " Ah! sir, but ' Miss Kissler' is not like those ladies who have wish to make fuss every time. She know, too, that you would fear much if you hear she was ill, so she go away quiet and get well" "Of course—oh yes! Er—do you know when 'Miss Kissler' went?"

Margot hesitated for one second In older to look bird-like and intelligent; then she answered very glibly. "Yes, sir—yes, sir, 'Miss Kissler 1 and Miss Kray went to Trevillen—right away in Cornwall where the air was warm and there was sea. 'Miss Kissler' have come back so well and so strong that she Bay she can eat one whole chicken altogether! Hat ha!. . . You will please wait, sir—and to please excuse if there is disorder, for, with the coming back of 'Miss Kissler' and then the coming back of Miss Kray, there has been much things everywhere. Thank you, sir—if yon will please to be seated 'Miss Kissler' will not be many momenta—thank yon, sir!" But Sir Gilbert did not "please to be seated"; on the'contrary, when the door was shut with insinuating noiselessness he more "pleased to" walk about the room—to walk restlessly, as if there was something on his mind which induced unnecessary action of the body. So " Cccile Clare" had been to Trevillen in Cornwall (Gilbert had never been to Trevillen) —and Pauline Kray had been with her!—yet the excellent and soothing Margot had spoken of first the "coming back of ''Miss Kissler,"' then the "coming back of Miss Kray," as though the two events were not synonymous. For one moment Sir Gilbert permitted himself the emotional luxury of a frown, but a second later his face had become once more inscrutable as a great mutilated stone face which had been left behind in the desert while he continued to drift aimlessly about the room. Margot was right—disorder seemed in some vague iashion to pervade the whole place, and not the delicious disorder of art so much as tho normal nnbeautiful disorder attendant upon domestic upheavals of sorts. A large luggage strap coiled snakelike across the white fur mat; a tra-velling-rug made a Wot upon a rosestrewn chintz chair cover; a large cardboard box—labelled Rjckford's Express Delivery, tied up -with string and addressed — Gilbert paused and stood sfaill. The large cardboard box claimed his attention, because the address written on the lid happened to catch his eye. Miss Rrnv, c/o "Miss C. C. Kissler,' Wren Cottage, Lntaonton, Harleyshire. What did the box mean? Well, it meant that while she was away Pauline Kray bad received a parcel which there was no need to open, and which had, in

consequence, been brought back just as lit was sent. -~ Yes, obviously, it meant all that, bat : «—4ra*—what more besidw? Well, it looked as if it meant that there was some mistake in Margot"B information—as if, instead of staying at Trevißen in Cornwall, *X3eefle Clare" had been staying at Lddmonton in Barleyshire! Probably this was the ease. Probably —probably But at "probably*' ft stopped—there wae no time for further conjecture—■ for no man on earth could conjecture anything when standing in the doorway was a girl, a serious-eyed cowslip-haired giri whom the man had every reason and every right to take straight and close in his arms! (Continued daily.)