"A TRIUMPH OF LOVE"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 36, 12 February 1929, Page 18

"A TRIUMPH OF LOVE"

CHAPTER XlX.—(Continued.)

Madeleine and Jacques continued to talk for quite a long time without any longer addressing each other as Monsieur and Mademoiselle. Their innocent conspiracy charmed them for it would have been difficult to find two natures better matched. Nothing seemed more charmingly seductive than to mystify all the world by an appearance of obedience and keep themselves free. What they said after this doesn't matter. It was on the Devil's Bridge that they proposed, ratified and guaranteed by oath the treaty of their betrothal, a treaty which would have been rather too much like a capitulation if Madeleine had not added the secret clauses which reserved the future, the free will and the amour propre of the contracting parties. While Madeleine and Jacques were thus engaged upon the Devil's Bridge, pursuing their conversation and signing their treaty with secret clauses, Madame Forest was seated beside Daniel Sarosch in the Blue Pavilion. There was no need for anxiety, for nobody could see them. They were well protected by bushes from the gaze of the passerby. Madame Forest sipped from time to time a little of her tea, which had long gone cold, and the charming little cakes were sadly neglected. With troubled soul and a heaving breast, Luce listened to her friend. How charmingly he spoke. What wonderful phrases he found to tell her how beautiful she was, and he was not at all afraid of repeating himself. Daniel had been, he said, all over the world, and never anywhere had he met a woman so astonishing, so adorable, so sublime as Luce.

"Really, Daniel, you exaggerate," she murmured, but she was radiant with happiness all the same. "No," she declared with a strong Moldavian accent, "my admirable Lucy, you are the most divine marvel in all nature."

For all his comic pronunciation these words had no difficulty in producing an impression upon so sentimental a creature as Luce, and now Daniel impetuously threw himself on his knees on the gravel path, seized the hands of Madame Forest, and murmured passionately: "Lucy, Lucy, I luff you!" The great word was out. When a man addresses a declaration of this kind to a woman for the first time, she can be indignant or not, according to circumstances and according to the merits or social position of the one who makes the declaration, but custom requires that she shall always show herself surprised in face of so unexpected and extraordinary a declaration. Madame Forest did not fail to comply with the conventions and her face really expressed the most complete stupefaction. All the same, she had been waiting for this "I luff you" for three-quarters of an hour. She was ready with her reply. Yet, before delivering it, she hung her head, gave a deep sigh, and then said tremblingly: "Be careful, Daniel. Don't talk lightly. I am not so insensitive as I may appear. Love is a very very serious "thing to me, and if T loved you, Daniel, it would be for life." "Lucy," said the Hospodar, trembling from head to foot, "I adore you for ever." When Daniel reiterated these sentences with great fervour. Luce proceeded to submit him to the acid test.

"Think for a moment," she said. ''Here you are to-day, a free man, nothing to bind you, able to go where you like and do what you please. Would you not be sorry for it if you changed such an agreeable situation for The thousand and one little slaveries of married life?"

Before this traditional question. Uw courage of many men has failed, but the Hospodar was unshakable. Still on his knees, he kissed Luce's hand, and enthusiastically declared afresh his ardent, his eternal tenderness. He went on:

'My only hope, Luce, is that you will agree to become the Countess Sarosch," but he continued in a more moderate tone:

"Could I ask you if necessary to come away with me to my own country, far, far from Paris? Further than the Carpathians, further than the Danube?"

"Never fear," said Luce energetically. "I will follow you. I know what the duties of a wife are. What didn't I do for my first husband? Ernest had in me a devoted and faithful wife. Yet I never had for him what you could really call love. No, Daniel, not the shadow of it. I never have loved before, and I am happy to know to-day that my heart has been reserved for you."

"Dear Luce," sighed Daniel. Up to now Luce Forest had conducted her plan prudently and successfully. She had done everything in good order, and the first part of her plan was achieved. There remained the second, and here it was necessary to attack at once without leaving a breathing space. Daniel Sarosch was already almost engaped, half captive.

"I can read in your soul as you can in mine," she said. "Are they not twin souls? All sentiment, all delicacy. I am sure you despise as much as I do all base questions of personal interest, of money. . . ."

"Pooh, money!" said Sarosch. "I never concern myself about that," and, holding out his hands, he seemed to be waving away an invisible and importunate offering. It was thus that the ambitious Caesar "thrice refused the kingly crown" that he desired .so much.

"I knew that already, Daniel, my dear Daniel, and T shall not do you the injustice of imagining that your sentiments for me will be at all changed when I tell you. as I must, that, far from being very rich, as I am supposed to be, I have no fortune, and that I have only a little house in Gap and a capital of six thousand francs."

"What matters?" murmured Daniel. He got up from his knees, however, and sat down on the chair with the air of a man who had received a sharp hit on the head. He drank hastily a cup of tea and played nervously with a biscuit, and if you had looked at him at that moment, you would have understood that it mattered a pood deal to the Hoepodar, in spite of his magnanimous reply, to discover that Madame Forest was not the millionaire he had imagined her to be. He controlled himself sufficiently well, however, to prevent the simple-minded »nd romantic Luce from realising what ft shock she had administered to her Daniel.

When the patient fisherman has long studied the river, sounded its depths, examined the bank point by point, he knows with certainty where the biggest pike is likely to be found. He ha* seen it, estimated ite weight and admired its

I By PIERRE BILLOTEY 1 II I

surprising length and he rejoices. He throws out his line with anticipatory joy. The line disappears in the water, there is a pull, and at the end of his labour he lands —a policeman's old boot.

Thus it was with Daniel. He was as deceived as the unfortunate fisherman. Like him, he believed he was about to land a wonderful prize, and, like the fisherman, he believed, rightly or wrongly, that what he actually landed was nothing to be excited about. Sarosch, however, thought quickly, and he repeated with more apparent conviction: "What does that matter to me?" For he did not intend to discontinue his siege before he had learned how it was that Luce, if she was poor, managed to live like a rich woman. Little by little, by means of insidious questions, he got some light on the mystery. Madame Forest was not at all suspicious. Convinced that Daniel would marry her, she saw no reason to hide from him any of the details of an existence whicli was to be confided to him altogether. Luce then told him her story and, asking him to keep it secret, even from Pauline and Nicolette, explained the role that she played towards Madeleine, great niece and heir of Eugene Garain. At this point Daniel started so visibly that even Luce noticed it.

know M. Garain?" she asked. "Merely by name, like everybody," replied. Sarosch. negligently, but a 'reflective look had come into his eyes. "Well," continued Luce, "I have done my duty. Soon I shall have no more to concern myself with about the young girl. The dear child is about to marry though against her will. They are forcing a fiance upon her that she does not want."

"Poor little thing," said Durochat, still looking very reflective.

A few m'inutes later, Madame Forest realised that it was half-past six. She rose to go, announcing that she must join Madeleine, who was waiting nearby ' ea / b y ? Well, my dear Lucy, go and fetch her and we can all stay a little while longer." "Oh, it's impossible, Daniel. What would Madeleine think?"

The child will think what you tell her. Tell her we met by chance. Don't let us part yet, Lucy. I should hate you to go so soon. You wouldn't like me to suffer, would you, my dear, dear love?" Dangerous as the proposal was, Lucy could not resist The prospect of another hour with Daniel was too tempting Moreover, Madame Forest, like the reft " f / S 'm ad er ,itt,e vanit y< «nd she felt sufficiently proud of her conquest to desire to display it to all the world commencing with Madeleine

(To be continued dailv.)