Miscellaneous.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9892, 19 January 1895, Page 6

Miscellaneous.

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.

She was the young wife of an old « general ; he, the general's alde-de-oamp. There had been a time, some years be- ; fore, when, flattering horself that her ] heart was broken and that she bad loved ( for the first ind last titno, she hnd I yielded to tbe general's soldierly wooing i and had married him, only to find within I ■ a day after the ceremony that the lovo i she had believed completely and forever | beyond ber reach was — or had bean, i right along- -quite within her prasp. i There was nothing to do, however, but , to accept her fate as gracefully atd ; uncomplainingly as hundreds of other women do ; to smile on her old husband and on the world, and to hide under a oloak of good breeding all her shortcomings save that which made her at tlraea just a little oaprioious and unreasonable. At first there had been an entiro blankness in the outlook. Her lips would turn oold and the blood ring in her ears ; she would seem sometimes inattentive and would, as the general laughingly termed it, j;o a wool-gather-ing. She fire iv a littlo thin, and tbe look of bor eyoa wns not so direct and frank as bef re ; but all these fcliirisu passed unnoticed and no one guessed the nnbappiness, the futiH'y of the life of this ono woman moving about so cheerily in their midst. As truly as language was given to us to conceal our thoughts, expression was given us to conceal onr sentiments. Only, the woman who always laughs, the woman who mocks lightly, tho woman who seeks the solitude of a noisy orowd, is apt to be the woman who has tasted all bitterness and Intoiioates her brain with noise as a wretohed man inloxioates hia senses with wine. Not the least of her troubles had been that she felt the fearf nl danger of being constantly near and with this man who had unwittingly wrecked her life : but she was powerless, more so than If she and he had been in civil life. Then she could have put him on his honor not to come where she was ; she could even have pioked a quarrel with him and forbidden him tbe house. But here, in a small garrison — for the general was not a general as yet — with the lieutenant stationed there, living in the bouse next ti hers, a double bouse, so that the poroh.es were -common, she dared not raise a storm of comment by being constrained with her husband's great friend. So things went on for a year, the man not dreaming that the woman gave him a thought; and envying the older one who had obtained all that would have made his own life worth the living ; the woman fighting against odds almost beyond her strength, foroing herself to dutifulnosn toward a deorepit and unloved husband ; and the husband fondly doting and believing that his wife was above suspicion. It is always darkest just before dawn. When the whole thing had become unendurable to the woman, when her weakened spirit waa ready to give way and she to throw horsolf on the mercy of the younger man, the latter was ordered East upon recruiting service, and danger was, for the time being, removed. When the ambulance, with Getty's trunk strapped on behind, with Qetty in "oit" olothes inside, and the blue-blouaed teamsteroraokint; bis blacksnake over the books of fonr Government ravilos, rolled out of the post amid tbe scattering of chickens and laundress's children from the road and half obßoored by poffi-) of alkali dust, Helen Keats hurried up to hor owti room and watchod from the window thereof in breathless anxiety until the last SJBjl.^d passed tbe reservation i(noJHHt Grotty was undoubtedly and beyom&ecall out of Government territory, and being carried along to that Mocoa of all dwellers in Western garrißons.^the mysterious, allombraoing East. Then tbe woman , looked herself io, threw herself on the bed, and sobbed and oried as sho bad not cried since the day of her marriage ; it was partly relief and partly— she know not what. But as she lay there, the only words she .murmured were " two years," " two whole years," and no one may guess whether the two years would be a time of reßplte ot a time of endurance, since she knew not even heraolf. So the two years pssed, and another, and yet another year. In the course of army, event*, .it bad happened that these bits of driftwood on life's unresisting main had not met and touohed, that the little ripples and waves had tossed them further and further apart, quite out of sight. Oxygen destroys in the fullness of time, I have heard, the stateliest and most solid, and what ory gen is to nature, that Is separation to human nature. Slowly but unfailingly were these two learning to forget ; sometimes it eeeraod an effort to remember, snd esoh one, ashamed of hia own inconstancy, would dig out from the ash-heap of the past tatters and splinters to remind him of the time when tho ash-heap had been a beautiful struoture. Say the French, who know suoh matters well, "who goes too soon, oomes back too late " ; but quite as sure " who goes too late, comes book too sooo. Getty had not gone until the mischief was wrought, but he came back before it was mended. The sea of army life heaved and was troubled ; there was unrest in the deep wherein many things were undergoing sea changes. There had been deaths, or retirements, or something of the sort, and the general — who, although he had been palled by that title for years bad been in roality only a colonel — the general came at last to his own, and was entitled to all sorts of luxuries, and oomforta, and pomp, and circumstance; also was he entitled to an aide-de-camp, or mtiyV* two, or three, or four, howbeit he had at least one, and that Is all that concerns us, for he was Getty. Mrs Seats had protested a little, as muoli as sho had dared, but the worthy general had impressed upon hor that foremost artiolo of an officer's oreed, that a woman should not meddle in offiolal business. So the great, heaving swells of the unquiet son tossed these helpless pieoes of wreckage toward eaoh other again. They came together and did not part. For two years these impotent playthings of destiny struggled to live up to their principles. The four years of parting had been swept away, los'fc, arid forgotten in the one moment of meeting. Suoh a proßaic meeting, too. Right on the street, in the midst of tho fine dust, the rattle and sorape of waggon-wheels, the hum ming of eleotrlo-oars, the Blatifj and coarse language of loungers, the jostling of passers-by, the ear-splitting equalling of newsboys. They had met, and smiled, and shakon hands, had said the most inane things, nnd had oach looked hard at the other and forgotten all separation in reunion, all the past in the present. In truth it was " too soon." Bat each was honest, ao his or ber code of honesty taught ; ho was an officer, therefore a gentleman ; ehe was a woman, with all a woman's strongest sense of duty. Her position, her malntonanoo, her honor, depended on her behavior to ber huiband ; besides she was fond of him in a woy— grateful, at least. But the general and his staff lived in one big hotel, close by the sea ; tbe lieutenant and the general's wifo were bound to seo each other a good deal, even had they beon mutually ivntipathetio ; how much more so tfheu, when they were content only together and when eaoh would try to quiet oonsoienco with tho f allaoioss and comforting

nrgnment that there was no d ringer if psch ware only a little oirctifoapoct. Conscience may straggle sad figbt_ at first, aa doea a patient to whom ia being given oh'oroform, bat slowly and surely it *iU Call asleep, and then the knife of evil can out away unfelt. There waa no harm in the constant communication of these two young people; and yet the moonlight strolls on tho beacb, the wanderings through, the dusty streets of the Mexican town in the hot twilight, the rows on the velvety f?ray water, the ohata ou tho piazza or in coay corners of tho long parlors, which gave them suoh uuspenkable pleasure — a pleasure neither would quite acknowledge to himself or horself, <md far less so to the other — gave cause for much comment, most unfavorable in pnrport. As a matter of courae, those most concerned were the last to know of it all. They knew at last, however. There was a plonio one flay from the hotel — the general, bis wife, and staff, and the Btaff' a wivos and friends. They drove to tho mouth of the canon, where they were to lunch, in a tally-ho, then got out — or down, as the case might be— and wandered up along the woody path. Aa a matter of oonrsn, it fnll to Getty's lot *•■> guide tho trembling footsteps of Helen Keats over brooks and rmiah places. The general followed behind al Bomn dlofanoo, dragging along a small ohlM. the son and heir of a certain oivilian to whom the general had taken a fancy. Tho old man saw nothing peculiar in his being left alone to strucple with some other man's ohild — his infatuation was great, i After a while he bethought himself of asking his wife if she had given her jewellery to the clerk to pnt in the hotel safe. Not oaring to hurry ahead and oatch up with her, he told the child to take his message. "Neh, neh," said the boy, wisely shaking hin hoad. "What?" thundered the general, unused to being disobeyed. " Nopo," reiterated the boy ; " mamma toldvme I was not never to go near those two when they were together, 'oauae they might be sayin' thing! I shouldn't heor. They're together all the tlme ; I think, too." Having delivered whioh opinion, he stumbled over a stone, and instead of being held tip by the old man, the trembling hand let him go, and he fell prone upon the gravel and the rocks. It was a merry pionlc, despite th( surliness of the general; no one paid, much attention to his humors. When they reaohed home in the evenIng, the general took bis wife to her room and locked the door. What paused within is better untold. From' the passage one could hear low, hoarse, restrained voices, whioh geomed to hiRB now and then. Then the old man, livid and trembling, came ont, Blamraed the door, strode down the hall and out along the beaoh. Helen watched him from her window, thinking of the time she bad looked after a daat-enoiroled ambnlanc > with equal anxiety — perhaps more. When he waa quite oat of sight, she glided hurriedly out of her room, down the passage, and listened at a door. There Roomed to be but one person behind it. She poshed it open, went In, and looked it after her. " Harry/' she said, in a very low ; tone, " I'm in trouble. Francis has i found it all ont— that is, I told him— i my part of it, not yours. I said it was . I who cared for you— who — who ran ; after you — that it was none of your i doings. No — be quiet— listen; I'm in a i great hurry. I told him all that, but I it'a not so. Yon do love me, I know i that. You can prove it now. I hare [ got to go away; Francis says soj he i says that— that he ib going to divorce [ me— me— do you hear ? Think of that I i I have never done enough to deserve it ; ' I have struggled and tried to be goon, [ and it doesn't pay— it certainly does not. l lam not going to any longer. . Hairy,' I am ruined anyhow ; it couldn't be worse l —not possibly — and It could be better, i You can mako it better. lam going to I say what, is oalled a dreadful thing. I ; am going to tell you that if you love me i as Ido you, you mußt leave everything , behind you, thia very flight, and take i me away, where we can be happy withI out nil this sham. Will you do it? i Don't — don't dare say you won't — good i God ! don't you dare ! I believe from t your face you are going to." There was silence for a moment, then Getty began with hesitation. He told ; the half-crazy woman that ho ■would j not, that he conld not, that he was an , officer and dared not. | " You weigh your miserable oomtnls- , sion against my happiness, do youP" : she Rasped. \ He told her that It was not his oom- [ mission, not because he was an officer, butbeoause he waa a gentleman. He \ could not betray this old man — his \ friend ; his commission did not amount I to anything beside his honor ; In losing that he would throw dleoredit not only i upon himself, but upon bis regiment and . upon the army. : Helen stood looking at him in horror j and an inferior sort of soorn. She put her hand on the key and turned it baok, grasped the knob, and opened the door. 1 " Good-bye," Bhe interrupted his explanation. " I mast go to-night, and ' all alone, aod you— you must stay on — . yeß, I see It, because you are an officer and a gentleman." San Franscisco Argonant.