THE WIFE OF DIVES.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9144, 1 July 1895, Page 2

THE WIFE OF DIVES.

By Clara Savilk-Clarxe. It was morning in Ihe house of the rich Jew. and the eun shone on the face of the French maid as she looked through the newly-washed silk garments, and listened for her lady's bell. It came at last—a faint electric tinkle— and she ejaculated, with her queer foreign face working strangely, as she spoke : "Ah ! Men, alors; in jrood time, too, or Madame, will naver be ready by half-past ten." When ahe entered the darkened room a querulous voice snid sharply : "Throw open the curtains, Marie, and let the sun in. I have hardly slept at all." There was no answer, while the maid obeyed. " Has Sir George gone out?" "Sir George Bertram is at breakfast now, Milady." " So late ! " " It is nine o'clock." "Mane, I must be ready by half-past teD." "So Milady informed mc last night. Which perfume will Milady prefer for her bath ? " " Did you order the dog-cart for half-past ten?" " Ah ! yes." Her mistress slipped out of bed, and popped her tiny feet into the white slippers the rnsid held in readiness. She drew the $ilk ni>;ht-gown she wore closer round her, and then, with her babyish fnce raided towards the sun, she trotted with steps like those of a small child to the mirror, which reflected the face of the fair Christian wife that the rich Jew had married two years before. Her skin was white as milk, her eyes large and pathetic, her mouth a mere rosebud of a delicate pink shade when unaided by art. She made a little pouting grimace at herself in the glass, as some women are wont to do the better to see if th eir skin is quite smooth, or if the dark lines left by a sleepless night are absolutely disfiguring. On a sudden the whole dainty picture changed, a terror, unexpected and appalling, sprang into the grey eyea. "Marie, my peignoir, quick!" she cried and, hastily slipping her arms into its ample sleeves, she snatched up a nmal, gold key and ran towards the door. Then »he cried out, " Oh, how you startled mc t " and laughed. Her husband wai a little man, with a short nose, a sallow skin, and small, bead like eyes. " 1 am sorry to disturb you," he said; " but I left my cigar-case in your boudoir last night, and, remembering you kept it always locked, 1 thought I would ask Mario for the key." "You shall have your cigar-caee—l am going there myself; Marie shall bring it to you." "My dear, in this costume! The weather is still cold. I insist, give mc the key. Now tell mc what you want." She shrank back as he caught the small gold bauble from her tiny fingers, and she stammered, " I'il go later, myself. You will send mc back the key f " " Of course." Aa he was moving she caught his arm. " George, what are you going to do this morning?" " I am going to ride. Why ? " "Oh ! All right. Now I must lock you out, Sir, as I want my bath and my massage. I have ordered the dogcart at 10.30, to di ive mc a little way, and then I shall walk back. I need some exercise." The Jew looiccd at her keenly. She bolted the door Kgainst Mm. "Madame will be ready by eleyeu," said the maid. "Not before?" "Impossible!" ' The small foot was stamped upon the ground, and a few .bitter and very bad words were fused. The maid answered nothing, while the room, filled with every luxury money could buy, became faint with a heavy vapour and the scent of lilac hlanc. . • • * « a The Jew turned the key in the door, and entered the boudoir. His wife's dainty cigarette-case lay on the table; he passed it by and found his own ; then he cut the end of a cigar and went to the mantelpiece for the matches. ' A« he did so a piece of paper, dropped under the writing-table, caught hU eyes. He stooped slowly, | bending his body in a cunning manuer, but touching nothing, and he read, " Tomorrow at eleven I shall be on the beach, near S—." Amid the costly trifles from the Orient, amid the latest Parisian toys, he became suddenly erect, while the room was slowly dimmed with the smoke and scent of his cigar. *■*•.■ • ■ • « ' A far purer perfume—namely the breath of the sea itself —greeted a youug man who wended his way from a deserted heath on to the sandy shore. He was an honorary attache at a foreign embassy, by name Harold Lsighton, as poor as a man may be for such t> post, and, report said, as correspondingly fascinating:. He glanced up towards a path through the gorse, the waves rippled to lug feet, and a raau, rowing standing, much as the gondoliers do in Venice of old-world fame, went by in a small boat. His eye was attracted by a horseman, a mere speck on the distant downs, " He'll take over an hour to reach the village," he thought. "Whoever it is, he doesn't know the waters are out over the other end of the heath;" and he began to wonder if he were waiting foolishly and in vain. As he did so he heard a stepon the damp, sullen sand behind him. lie turned quickly. " Then you have come," he cried. She laughed, with the pink in her cheeks and her eyes turning blue in the sunlight, and her lips parted over the even teeth, as she panted in little gasps. "How quickly you walk, Harold. I almost bad to run 1 Why, your lips taste of the sea, you naughty boy 1 Now, where shall we sit, and what have you got to say?" He found her a seat on a sandhill, partly sheltered from the wind by a heavy bush of gone, then he flung himself dowa beside her gracefully. " Ah, Harold," she exclaimed, " you look well like that. Don't you think you are rather a poseur?" She had a trick, which he always resented, of sayisg little things which appeared to be fun, with a horrible foundation of truth. "What are you, then ?" he retorted. She smiled with a flashed face. "A most stupidly natural little fool, who risks a good deal to waste her time here in your company." "That's true," he assented. "I am grateful, I assure you." "Well, when do you go to Paris?' she asked. "I go to London to-night—to Paris to-morrow. , * "So soon I" After a pause, she said faintly, " Well, what is it yoa have to say to mc f* " Yon know perfectly weiL I want yon to cone away with rae, as I told you before, when yoa didn't say no." He emphasised that. " I have money eaough for us both to be very comfortable: nothing, of course, compared with your present luxury is possible; bat, still, I am devoted to you—and yon—you said—" " Yes; I said I adored you. It is true." Be drew her to him ; she lifted her face, and after a second continued— " But! Oh! yes, Harold, there's a big but. I am not sore that I can do it. I am not sure that I should be happy." " Yoa don'c know what love means," he said. "Yoa dent know what passion mean?** , She smiled. "I know both; I didnt

before I met you—till you taught rae; but I love something else better than these things, better even than you." " What in Heaven's name is that ?" "Myself. Oh, you don't understand. I'll explain. 1 can't do without my horses, ray carriages, my dresses from Paris, my Marie, ,au<l ray number of baths a day, my number of servants, my good clief, my jewels—which 1, on occasion, weary of— my crowd of flatterers, my gardens, my town house; in short, I have learnt howto bo a queen, and I c*n't give up ray kingdom. No, Harold, not even in exchange for you. I want to keep you here, too. Ie annoys 1112 when I can't have everything I wish. But you say you must go-" "You are trying to pretend to be so selflsh that the thought of such a passion for self, for is is a passion, is distasteful even to mc who love you." "Kis9 rae, and you won't say such horrid things. There, are those selfish lips ? Why, what nonseuse you talk 1" The man held her in a grip she could not escape. " Tell rae that wasn't true, dear. Say you do love mc and will come as you promised—for you did promise. No, don't shake your head. No woman ever owned such eyes and mouth and could lie aa you lie. Do you want to drive mc mad ? " "Harold," she pleaded, "don't let us be dramatic." He frowned, and she added quickly, " We must talk it over, dear, and you will, I know, be reasonable. Now, how could you really believe in a promise given when I first realised how weak I was and woke to the knowledge of what love meant? I am sure I have risked enough for you already. I was in terror that George would discover your letter to-day—l can't remember if I locked it up in the boudoir or not. Now, let ua be wise, and do nothing that we shall regret for the rest of our lives. Come, Harold, be a man 1" " Do you know what you are saying, you she-devil ?" " Do yoa know what you are doing, you brute? You've gripped my shoulder* till you hurt mc, and I'm sure there will be a mark. I hate a mark anywhere on nay skin." The man flung her off and laughed. " You do. That's true enough. Your own beauty is your idol, and it mustn't be touched. Fool that I was to believe this was a woman. Fool to be tricked by her baby face and moclc pathetic eyes 1 This affair will serve her as a new grievance, a trouble to pet and caress, and bring out as a stock-in-trade to win the pity of the women she knows, who think she has all she desires, little knowing how true it is, siuce she has herself, and wherewith to clothe hereelf as few other women are clothed. Oh! don't look frightened; I shan't touch you again—l never want to touch you again." " Harold! " she cried, " you don'c mean it. You love mc 1" He looked at her then, and grew scarlet. The small rounded chin was raised, and the eun shone on her soft whtte throat; her tiny hands, stripped of their gloves, were laid against his breast, her parted lips were lifted slowly towards hie. He pressed his own mouth to them till she cried out. " Oh, child I" he 9aid; " who taught you to be so cruel? What made you such as you are ?" " Harold," she pleaded, " you don't bate mc?" " I can hate nothing about you now," he said; " but later I can't answer for. Now let. mc find courage to cay good-bye." " Nat altogether, dear. You will .come back ? ■' " Ob, I can't 1 I can't 1 Not to go away alone agnln." "WhatapHy!" She moved apart and drew a pattern with her tiny shoe on the sand. " You do understand," she continued.,, "?t isn't that I don't love yau,, It i 9 merely that I can t give up everything; for you." " I understand," he assented bitterly. " Not that I'm a very good woman," ahe went on. "The morel part of it doesn't come in. Very moral women, who are good because they are moral, are so tiresome. I am good because it would be more moral to be bad." " You know yourself pretty well," he muttered. " And so I thought, as you were the only man I have ever cared for—that you ought to know. I don't rob anybody, you know. I take merely what is my natural right. One isn't given a hand like that to be stripped of its rings—is one ? " "No," he admitted sullenly. "Nor is my husband tiresomely often at home. I can go where I please, do what I please, and buy what I please. He adores mc, of course—but then most men do." " I had not flattered myself that I was the only victim." "My poor Harold, you are not*. Still, you have one distinction: I never cared at all for any of the others." "And you pretend that you care for mc?" " The red lips trembled, and then she laughed. " Why, I know I do," she cried. ' I wish I didn't, except—" "Well?" " It wae nice to find out what the sensation was like." The man ewore. " That isn't pretty," she remarked. "Is there anything else?" he inquired. "No, nothing, only that I shall be late in getting home if 1 don't go now, and you may kiss mc, and cay good-bye, please. And don't look so cross, Harold; you know I'm not very strong, and if I didn't see good doctors and hare tho money to go south every winter I mightn't live. Yon wouldn't want mc to die, Harold ?** " Ob, let mc go 1 I can't stand any more." " You haven't kissed mc." " I don't want to. Isn't that your road 1 This to the right is mine. Good-bye." " Come back and kiss mc at once." He didn't hear—at any rate, he did not answer. He strode from her with a white face and strained lips, and a look that brutalised the whole of his handsome face. She clenched her little fista, and stood immovable till he disappeared round a bend in the road over the heath. There was the smothered, eound of a hora&'s hoofs on the soft sand, and a voice spoke her name. She screamed hysterically* •• O George! How you startled mc! Ho-tr eorjd you ? How could you ? You've maur mi quite lll.** ' x'ia «o sorry," said the Jew, in hie calm face no sign cf defeat: " it is a mere coincidence that we should meet here. I lost neatly an hour's time, owing to the Broads being flooded at the foot of the Downs. Well, shall we walk home by the high road together 8 It isn't far that way" " Yes." He dismounted, and, leading his horee by the bridle, offered her bis arm. She clutched it, almost with pleasure. The Jew glanced downwards at her white lips and large, frightened eyes; he noted the trembling fingers within his arm, and he said carelessly, " I saw young Leighton go over the heath a raomeat ago. Bid you happen to meet him i " She flushed crimson. " Yes, 1 met him," ahe admitted; " and it was just aa well, since he was walking: over to say good bye. He leaves England te-morrow. Of coarse, he's a pleasant boy, but I don't fancy I shall fret if we never see him again. Shall youf The Jew smiled. Perhaps he thought— the episode being finished—there* was nothing more to say. Anyhow, he had the gift of silence, and he may have guessed that, whatever temptations Nature put in her way, this pretty piece of property, befog once bought, was

likely, for the moneys sake, to remain his own. She glanced up at his face. "Did you wrice foe that black pearl?" ahe asked. " Yes, since you wished to have it." " Oh, that is nice ! "—and she laughed like a child. A few minutes later her heart gave a sudden leap, as in the distance, above the trees covered with spring blossoms, rose the towers of the Jew's luxurious palace, which was all her own.— Sketch.