THE FALL OF MINERVA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13090, 1 April 1903, Page 8

THE FALL OF MINERVA.

(By A. CONSTANCE SMEDLEY.) “But, darling, I must be at the office tomorrow morning. I can’t lose all my clients!” “ I’ve told you you’re not to go back tonight.” But I must, dear. Really !” ‘The speaker’s voice verged on the plain? five, • “ You can go in the morning. I don’t mind yon leaving me- so much when the sun’s shining and it’s bright and cheerful.” “ I shan’t get in till afternoon then, and that means another whole day wasted. 1 must catch my train to-night.” “ Then you’ll have to turn right round the second we get up to my hotel and walk all these five dreary miles back to the station. And on this bitter night, without vour -dinner! You can’t travel hundreds of miles without anything to eat. Don’t be ridiculous!” “ I’ll get something at the station.” Miss Dennison conveyed by her expression that she considered the resources of the station inadequate. ’.‘You are not going to-night, dear.” “I must, pet.” “ You are going to stay and eat a good dinner beside a blazing fire, and have a real nice cosv evening. Just think how dull I’ll be if you go and leave me all alone to listen to the howling of the hateful wind!” “ I’d ‘give anything to stay, my own darling little girl; you know that as well as I do. I’ll be down again for the weekend.” “ Then you don’t love me, and you never loved me 1” “ Oh, my darling, don’t begin all this! I’ve got to catch that train to-night, and nothing you can say or do will make me miss it.” “ I’ll never speak to you again if you go by it; I swear I won’t.” “For God’s sake, don’t let’s have another scene 1 I’m getting perfectly sick of it all!” ■ ■ “ Then why don’t you turn right round and leave me? Why do, walk on beside me? Why do you stay engaged to me. ” ‘ “Because I’m a fool!” As Miss Dennison could not consistently contradict this assertion, she confined herself to a dignified toss of her head, and continued to walk along the road in haughty silence. A row of telegraph-poles stretched desolately before them, and the wind swept across the marsh and hummed mournfully along the wires. Far away, the sea boomed, and the sharp, white sand flew up from the road in stinging showers, so that Miss Dennison put- up her muff before her face as she battled onward. The man at her side strode on with downcast head, and hands rammed deep into the pockets of his overcoat. His cap, pulled low down over his frowning eyes, partly protected his face from the onslaught of the gale. He was a strong, thick-set man, and his expression resembled that of a well-beaten but desperately goaded dog. . A fat and cheeky gust- of wind sent' the girl’s boa flying round her hat, and the man caught it just in time. As three miles had still to be traversed before they reached the hotel where Miss Dennison’s people were staying,' and Miss Dennison was of a chatty disposition, she welcomed this opportunity to break the silence. “If I were a man, I should be perfectly ashamed to let a girl insult me and trample on me so 1 I don’t know what sort- of a husband you think you’ll make !” The man preserved a discreet silence. “ I always wished to marry a man 1 could look up to. Why, you can’t have -any selfrespect at all!” 1 “ You’ve done your best to kill it, haven’t you ?” It is policy 7 ’ for the owner of the dog to maintain a firm hold if it resent chastisement. Miss Dennison tilted up her chin and assumes an air of intense and injured indignation. “ I have done my best to wake it up. If there is an insult which has power to rouse you, it is my- misfortune and not ,my fault that! do not know it.” Miss Dennison’s happy and fortunate betrothed looked, down on her with patience that was tightly strained. “ Is there any object in quarrelling at this particular moment? The wind makes* conversation rather an exertion ; and though I assume the proper course for me to take is to turn on my heel and stride away for ever, I can’t leave you to go home alone, you Cee.” “Why not?” “ The road’s too lonely.” “ Solitude is more companionable than yon.” * The more than happy object of Miss Dennison’s affections hesitated, then decided not to answer. • A whirl of sand came hurtling to them up from the ground. Miss Dennison stopped dead. A hoarding stood on ono side of the road, behind the iron railings. Tattered bills and posters fluttered from it miserably. “Do come along, dear!” said the man. Miss Dennison pressed her hands into her muff, and began an exhaustive study of the contents of the hoarding. , The man took a few steps forward ; he was of chivalrous disposition, but bad been engaged six months to Miss Dennistori. “It will be dark in a few minutes!” Miss Dennison continued- to peruse the bills, pensive interest in every line of her arrested pose. The man stood a few steps off, with a look on his face akin to that on the face of a nurse who waits for a more than usually spoilt, child. ” Do you know, I’m beginning to think I’ve gone the wrong way about managing vou ?” An involuntary dimple flashed and disap-

peared in Miss Dennison’s carefully averted face. Her betrothed, however, saw only a still abstracted back. " Suppose I were to take you at your word and leave you to walk home alone i “You are quite unmanly enough to do so.’’ “Unmanly!” • Is it manly to wait round after mo, &U my heels, like a little dog !” “ What, in heaven’s name, do you want of me? If I rebel, you Save hysterics and call me a brute!” " ‘ Vivyella !’ ” read Miss Dennison aloud. “What ridiculous waists girls have on fashion posters! Have you noticed? The man suppressed an exclamation. " Bub that’s rather a sweet blouse shes ■wearing. I wonder if I could remember it. I must make mental notes.” Miss Dennison rested her elbows on the railing and buried her chin in her muff, refloctivclv. "If you think you are going to make me miss that train by dawdling in this insensate fashion you are mistaken.’ “ Sweet sleeve !” murmured Miss Dennison. “I like the cuff so!” “ I shall simply leave you here, you know.” ■ , , ra, “ Bub I can’t see how. it s pub on. On, it’s cut all in one with the sleeve!” said Miss Dennison, with a sudden hurst of illumination. “Now, I mustTearn that!” Miss Dennison redoubled the fixity of her gaze. • “ I know perfectly well you hear everything I’m saying. Are you coming or aren t you?” . “I believe it’s arranged with a gusset! announced Miss Dennison. The man opened his mouth, then suddenly turned on his heel and swung down the road. He had cut the Gordian knot. Miss Dennison must make her deliberate way homo alone. He had "gone back to the station and his city-bound train. . Miss Dennison found herself left staring at the hoarding in an attitude of mind that; can only be described as one of stunned amazement. Then the dimples reappeared, and Miss Dennison smiled into her muff with an air of happy power. “The further lie goes, the further he’ll have to come back, so I won't look round,” said the astute and experienced Miss Dennison ; “ and the slower he is coming back the. surer lie’ll-be of missing his train. If he thinks he’s going to catch it to-night, when I want him to stay here, he’s very much mistaken, the ridiculous old thing!” Miss Dennison began to reperuse the hoarding ; ’it sheltered her pleasantly from the wind. “ A hundred pounds reward!” An unassuming little notice caught her eves. “Vivyella” as a subject is capable of exhaustion. Miss Dennison welcomed a change in literature with alacrity. ■ As'she read," Miss Dennison’s face portrayed a curious panorama of expression; her cheeks paled gradually. The little notice bore a crown, and was couched in terse and simple language; it was an earnest invitation to a one-eyed gentleman to return to his sorrowing friends and guardians at the convict prison across the marshes. It concluded with a thoughtful warning to lonely and unprotected travellers as to the gentleman’s unprepossessing appearance and playful disposition. Miss Dennison reread the, bill with interest no longer histrionic. " The sea-mist was rising on the marshes. The autumn dusk was closing in. The charms of meditation in the lonely landscape seemed suddenly to have lost their savour. Miss Dennison looked up and down the road; her despised betrothed had vanished into the mist. The lights of the station glimmered vaguely far on the horizon. On the other side, three miles of deserted road lay between her and her hotel. In the direction oh the station lay nearer safety—bub humiliation ; .for well did Miss Dennison know that her strength lay in her invulnerability. Let her once ’ lay down her sceptre and her reign of tyranny was over for ever. For six months she had enjoyed despotism ; was she now to eat humble pie and cry out for protection? With Napoleonic resolution, Miss Dennison turned in the direction of the hotel. She took five steps ; then, far away on the distant marshland, she saw a moving shadow. For the first moment she assured nerself it was hut a fantasy of her imagination. Then the shadow came nearer and resolved itself into a human figure—a shuffling, clumsy, furtive figure, creeping with bent head along the wall which separated the barren pastures. Miss Dennison stood, arrested. The wind moaned and whistled round the hoarding, but she heard it not. Her eyes were fixed on the strange figure advancing from the mist. Presently it hesitated and stopped short. Had it seen her. Suddenly, with cat-like swiftness, the figure left the shelter of the wall, and, still with downcast head, struck out into the open field. With curious, swift strides, it was covering the intervening ground ; in a few minutes it would strike the open road beside her. - Miss Dennison cast one wild glance along the road in vain. Then, with a sudden shriek, she was beating a retreat towards the station as fast as fear and the kindly wind could carry her. Somewhere behind her a hoarse voice shouted ; somewhere behind her heavy footsteps hastened. With blind eyes, Miss Dennison fled on. Now the lights of the station twinkled in the distance ; now the downward hill was gained which led there. Now —oh, rapture ! —a tall, broad-shoulder-ed and despised betrothed turned and stood amazed in the roadway, to see Minerva fallen from her pedestal and running after him! “ Save me!” said Miss Dennison, and flung herself, penitent, submissive, breathless, in his. arms. “For God’s sake, darling, here’s someone coming past! Wait a second till he’s passed us!” Miss Dennison’s betrothed, though a lover, was an Englishman. Miss Dennison opened her eyes faintly. “ He’s got your boa. See, he’s coming up to you.” ■ • Two embarrassed young people stood still while a still more embarrassed policeman approached them sheepishly. " 1 called to the young lady, but you didn’t seem to hear. Miss. You dropped it just by hoarding. I was cooming across marsh and I see the wind take it, and I caught it as it flew across the railings yonder.” Miss Dennison smiled whitely; Miss Dennison’s betrothed thanked the policeman more substantially. The policeman continued to the station with contentment in his tread. . “Now. darling,” said'-Miss Dennisons betrothed. “ Oh, don’t be angry said a suddenly abject despot. “I’ll never be horrid again. I’ll always do exaetlv What you toll me. Only, darling, darling, darling, don’t leave me to go horns along that dreadful, dreadful road alone!’ “ My poor, frightened little girl! What a brute I’ve been !"’ “You have rather,” confessed Miss Dennison. Along the lonolv road two lovers loitered. The wind swept 'merrily above them and around them, all unheeded. Miss Dennison’s face was screened from the rough blast, her head was hidden penitently against a sheltering arm. And, as they walked along. Miss Dennison’s betrothed concluded a kind and decisive conversation, in which Miss Dennison played an astonishingly contrite and secondary part. “ And you understand, dear, there are to be no anore of these ridiculous quarrels ?” 1 “ No, darling. I’ll do whatever you wish.” , , , , “The man must always be the head. I ve been foolish to give in to you so weakly. It’s been as much as yours.” “Yes, dear, it has.” " But you have been very inconsiderate.” “ A woman is always more in love than a man.” “ A man has duties which he must fulfil.” “ Yes, darling - , and its very wonderful Cni beautiful of him to neglect them for a

woman’s sake! A silly, cowardly, selfish, unattractive girl!” / Miss Dennison's betrothed refuted such an appreciation of her character with warmth. ‘ “Please!” said Miss Dennison. “The hotel people will see ns.” The brilliant facade of the hotel shone out suddenly behind the hill. Miss Dennison and her betrothed walked decorously up the drive, whore her anxious people welcomed them from (he piazza. Miss Dennison conducted her betrothed in triumph into the hall. : Late that evening, Miss Dennison and her betrothed concluded another conversation of a similar nature. “And you’ll be down at half-past seven in the morning to give me my breakfast?” “Yes, sweetheart.” “And you’ll take me to the station?” “Yes, darling.” “And always do exactly as I tell you?” “Yes, my own.” Miss Dennison hesitated. Then she ascended the stair pensively, while her betrothed stood at the bottom* and watched adoringly. At the turn of the baluster, she paused, candle in hand. The light shone on her sweet and saint-like profile. “But, all the same,” said Miss Dennison, “ you must admit you did not catch that train.” .