MY ROSE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4859, 8 March 1887, Page 4

MY ROSE.

A BSomory of the Commune

[jiy F. W. L. Adams.]

111.

Events progressed, and swiftly—l mean | political (;venta ; the events of my business did not progress at aU, but rather seemed to recede. I was beginning to be discouraged. Madame Belot and Laurent were the two most pleasant elements in my daily life, I used to go off over;," afternoon to see Laurent, and smoke and chatter with him in his rooms. Finally ho suggested that he should paint my portrait: and, after some strife occasioned by my taking the suggestion seriously, saying I should want to adorn my house with it, insisting on payiug him his proper price for it, &c, he begsn. In the evenings, after dinner, I used to sit in the saloon, and talk and drink tea withthcßclofcs, especially with Madame, She was the only French woman I over knew who could make ton properly. It was as she said, a weakness of hers. My unfailing present to her each Cliri-.tmas was a chest of the best tea I could get. M. Belot. like Laurent, an "old man with white beard," somewhat deaf, considerably dogmatic, I always found wearisome! after a time ; but Madame Belot, with her bright wit, knowledge of the world, reading (I wonder if any woman in Paris as many books, novels and others, as she did) — Madame was always pleasant and refreshing to me. She, like Laurent, thought that something terrible was at band, something very terrible ! Even if my business was nearly or quite completed, I doubt whether I should have left Paris —it would have seemed to me something like a desertion of these two old friends of mine. I have made a fairly large number of acquaintances, but only three friends and the third was thousands of miles away. I am a lonely man, but with, I suppose, curious parts of tenderness in mo. Sauntering out one morning, I happened to stop opposite a florist's. How our thoughts come and go. In a moment I was thinking of that Sunday afternoon, years ago, when I stood like this, making up my mind what flowers I should buy for Josephine. Aid then I thought of how I had bought a bouquet for her, and had gone with it to Jack Payne's (he had rooms then in ono of those streets behind the Batinolles and near that church by the Rue Blanche); and how, as we stood on his balcony smoking, we saw two fair damsels iv light attire in the balcony below; and how at last we let down the bouquet to them with much laughter, &c, &c, &c. I went into the shop, bought some flowers, and took them up to my room, thinldug that, if the singer appeared at her window again I would throw them to her. I frequently observed to myself that I was a fool for all this, and what was the good of it? but none the less, after dejeuner I stood leaning on the balcony rail, smoking, with the flowers in a glass of water ready on a chair just inside. Her window was open. Was she in ? Would she appear? I felt as stirred, as fluttered about it all as I had been when, a boy of seventeen, I made my first advances to my dear lit Je Josephine. I smoked on natil the amount of tremulousness that was iv mo was exhausted. She would not appear. Decidedly, then, I was a fool! StiU I lingered. What an idiotic position for a man like me to bo in, I thought. Who that knew me, who of my London acquaintances—Laurent, Madame Belot—which of them would believe it of me? Believe it'i Believe what ? I began to laugh. What a "much ado about nothing !" Presently I regained my self-possession. She appeared, I lost somo of my selfposscssion again, but happily not all. She stood leaning against the window, looking out across the city, rather dreamily. I threw out my cigarette; it fell close past her, attracting her attention. She looked up. Our eyes mot. I smiled and laughed ; this time it was she who smiled in sympathy. I smiled again, drew out the bouquet, showed it to her, and threw it. It lit in the embrasure in front of her window, some of tho petals being dashed off. She turned half round, looking into the room. Truly she had both a fine face and a fine figure. Straight brow and nose, and a round curved chin; dark, loose hair, knotted simply at the back of the head ; a marbly regal throat, and regal forms shown to perfection in her shabby brown, collarless, short-armed dress. And a warmth of color, rare in a Parisicnne. Standing thus in the window, neither in light nor shade, but in the atmosphere of both, ihe made, what we used to caU at the studios, " a fine subject," and more, a fine picture, the "values" were aU so good. All this fitruek me aa I. watched her. This sight of her beauty was overcoming aU my self.consciousness.

At last she smiled, drew back a little, and a man put out his head and looked up at jne with a smile, eir shall I say a grin ? She, too, looked up at me with a smile. After a' moment's inclination to teel foolish, the comicality of the situation came upon mo, and I looked down -at them both with a smile too. The man was a goodlooking man, not unlike her, genera—y speaking, but more swarthy and pallid. He laughed brightly. "But say then," he said; turning to her, " but say, then, thanks to the gentleman; rise, my beauty."

She, still smiling, took up the bonquet, kissed it, looked up to me, and said : " Thanks, sir!"

Then, with mutual bows, they went in, and I soon did the same, I lay down on my bed, with my hands under my head, staring at the ceiling, and wondering if the man was her brother. Alas, in a world that dogmaticaUy disbelieves in pretty girl's cousins, one is apt to be sceptical even about brothers. Ultimately I fell asleep, and did not awake till six, half an hour before dinner.

This was the day in which the Commune burst upon ns. M. Belot had a horrible story to teU us. One of the officers on duty at the Tuileries had been caught by a mob of petroleuses and others, saturated with' petroleum, set alight, and burnt to death. The TuUerieti were in flames.

[to be continued.]