He Who Fights

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6627, 14 August 1931, Page 10

He Who Fights

SYNOPSIS.

, Madame Anatole, a shrewd old -wire or forty years’ standing - , knows well enough the doings or her husband, Pierre. By her own methods she llnds out his hatred of one, Gregalre. ■ Pierre, a tall man with great Moustachious, goes in secret fear of Ills wire, but a husband at ease Is not Madame Anatole’s Idea of conjugal felicity. Barbara Dallington lives with her mother in Devonshire. Christopher Frayne, Barbara’s fiance, resides In the same district, with his sister, Sally. Mrs Dallington is friendly with Mortimer Brown, a man whom everyone dislikes. i

CHAPTER lll.—(Continued.)

His thoughts, centred throughout bn Barbara, notv wheeled back directly to her. His limitations of income, regarded hitherto only as unfortunate, tbok on a touch of tragedy. He wanted her with a great longing, and to toiat end riches would have been a most desirable adjunct, an irrefutable argument since on no other ground but that of small means could Mrs Dallington seriously raise objection. So he thought in the pride of his youth and family. As for Barbara, lie supposed that she was extravagant—all girls were, except Sally—but he was sure that his income would never enter into her head one way or another to influence her decision. To bring her to the point—that, after ail, Was his real problem, to force her to understand that he . was no longer just her old ally and comrade, but her lover in deadly earnest. For the rest, he was young, barely twentyfour, and not devoid of brains, and he was not afraid of work. He would get on, given half a chance; with tench an inducement he could not fail to make good. It was the immediate •problem that confronted him, how to beat down her delicious, but daunting, fan, how to penetrate through barriers of her musical laughter hrto that great region of deep-souled emotion that he knew by every thought and hope and memory of her must lie beyond. He was plunged into tills problem as he entered his own land and, passing through the little homer-fleld, sought out his young sister, Sally, Barbara’s stoutest friend and his own sworn ally, to cast the burden of it upon her sympathetic and intelligent enthusiasm.

CHAPTER IV. A Little Matter of Business.

*‘l have been working too hard,” announced Pierre Anatole to his silent wife with an air of self-pity on the morning after his abortive conference with his three associates. ‘‘Mon Dieu, but I am weary of it.” ‘‘That is because you are getting dd,” remarked Madame Anatole drily, ‘‘and fat,” she added as an afterthought, cooking a wary eye at him. ‘‘lt is not true!” he roared. “Diable, that anyone should say so!" • bolder than you were,” amended his wife with cold precision. “And the scales, they do not lie, eh?" “I am in the condition superb," he asseverated angrily. “I always am; and as for age, you are no younger—no, but much thinner. Bah, it is a stick that I shall be thinking I am married to soon."

“A stick is useful, ’* retorted Madame Anatole drily, suppressing all sign of the rancour with which the justice of his criticism filled her. “Do not try its usefulness on me then or I will break it—like that I” He bent the big ladle he had in his hand as he uttered his threat with an ease that spoke volumes for the continued strength of his muscles.

"That is not broken,” rapped out Madame Anatole. “It is bent only—and useless. And it cost many francs. Do you think we have money to throw away like that I slave and I slave, and that is all I get. But you never care; you “Silence t” growled Pierre, thoroughly roused, not only by his wife’s complaint which he knew of old was of a sort that, if not checked at once, would go on gathering strength, but also because his intention at the start of the' conversation had been to lull her vigilance into passive inability. “I am the master, I, Pierre Anatole I You Will do as 1 bid.” “Of course; never have I failed,” *he responded with an ironical inflection lost upon him. “'that Is well.” He rumbled into silence, and it was some minutes before he felt again sufficiently calm to resume his original strategy. “I am fatigued, I tell you,” he announced again at length. "You do not care, eh?” “I am much grieved. You have been working too hard,” duly responded hig wife, conscious immediately from the repetition that it was but the prelude to the intention he had matured. "Ah, that is so.” He swelled importantly. “My friends all say so, but it is not my wav to complain. They tell me I should rest myself a little; but no, Pierre Anatole does not rest. He is not lazy like some. So I say, no. Then they ask me, will I do a little business for them? I consider the matter, and I say, perhaps. They press me and I yield; I am so goodnatured.” He paused expectantly, and Madame Anatole took up her cue with that name dry irony which gave her suoh satisfaction and was so lost upon him; but, as a true artist, she preferred to enjoy alone the commendation of her own crlticial intelligence. “That is your great failing, Pierre,” she remarked. “You are right, Antoinette. But a man cannot help the nature he was. given by the Bon Dieu. I fight against it, but in vain. But I remember you; I do not accept for nothing, oh no. “I have the little business to attend to, for my friends, not for myself, you understand.”' “That Is good,” she answered In the same tone as before.

“It is very good,” he agreed in a voice of self-assurance, rubbing his great hands together as he spoke. He was again silent a moment; then he said casually, “You will come With me, no?” "Yes,” said Madame Anatole firmly. “You will?” his jaw dropped; the reply was wholly unexpected as anyone far less acute than Madame Ana-' tole would have noticed.

(By LORD CORELL.)

Instalment 4.

He felt bewildered, tricked. For years they had played this little comedy; always he had spoken of a little matter of business, under pressure from his friends, not for himself; always he had ended his announcement by this same casual invitation to her; always she had gratefully and tactfully declined. “ I will,” she reiterated with distinctness. “It is kind of you to ask me, but you have the good-nature, as you say. I also am fatigued; I am too thin: I will take a little holiday with you and grow fat.” “Bah!” retorted the discomfited strategian. “It would take all the money in Paris to put flesh on your bones, skeleton that you are 1” He stalked out in exceeding wrath and dudgeon to concentrate all the powers of his slow, pertinacious, and vindictive mind on this unprecedented event and to decide how most easily to lit it in with the rest of his plan. It was characteristic of their relationship that it never entered into his head to exercise his mastery over his wife by a 'direct order cancelling his invitation. He would have been obeyed, of course, but she was more dangerous in obedience than in that passive kind of revolt of which he had had years of experience and against which he knew of no defence. Neither did lie think for more than a moment of the simple course of departing on his little business without giving her any chance to accompany him; she would contrive, if he did, to turn up just when least wanted or in some other way to out-general him. He had tried circumventing her before in a manner very similar and had never ceased to regret it. When he had gone, Madame Anatole, as conscious of the greater part of his meditations as, though he were still present and speaking them aloud, stood a few moments giving silent vent to her offended dignity. A stick and a skeleton 1 Pierre was a very foolish man to anger her so. She smiled wryly as she reflected upon the punishments that she would inflict upon him for the insulting words. They would be long drawn out and quite irresistible; she knew a score of ways in which she could make him delightfully miserable without his being able to attempt retaliation or even admit that he was under her displeasure. The thought of them appeased her indignation.

CHAPTER V. The Thing Shameless.

It was evident, even to the unobservant mind of the young lady who was at last condescending to bring him what he had ordered for himself and his friend twenty minutes ago that the little foreigner was out of temper. Ills fierce little eyes seemed to dart about seeking to discover something that would justify his ebullitions, and ho tugged at the ends of his moustache as though the cause of the trouble lay embedded in the roots and he was determined, at no matter what pain to himself, to drag it into light. “If yer aren’t satisfied," exclaimed the girl, slapping down the dish so that it rang sharply on the stone table, “why don’t yer say so?" Lucient Guitard looked up at the interruptress with astonishment; she had not, except as a dilatory and unavoidable excrescence upon his hunger, been in his thoughts at all.

“ Vot you say?” he asked in his very broken English. “It is nozzlng to do with you, nozzing at all." “Well, why didn’t yer say so?” repeated the damsel in aggrieved tones. She passed on with an air of chilling disdain to spend a few moments exchanging comments with a red-headed colleague on the silly ways of foreigners generally and this one in particular.

M. Guitard was momentarily thrown out of his stride: what a nation of oxen these English werel A compatriot would have stood by in sympathy and joined in oommiserating with him. Even Ambroise Ramonet. slow and solemn as all men of Picardy, was inclined to agree with the excitable little Parisian..

“It is the thing shameless,” vociferated Guitard in rapid French, warming up again; “never do they leave me in peace 1 The imbeciles! How do they imagine that I perserve myself from the grey hairs? Here am I, in London, and no sooner am I here than they send rne this,” he waved a letter he hsld in his hand up and down in his indignation. “ And my dear friend, he is with me in this terrific London, this mountain of a city. I am responsible for him; am I to leave him here alone? Tell me that.”

“Not so, Lucien,” responded r Ramonet in his steady, deep voice. : “We will go together.” I “ Ah, there speaks the brave heart. I would embrace you, you my friend, but for these English! ( They do not ; embrace; they do not laugli; they sit ' and they stare. I do not like tiyfe ; country: never will I visit it again.” . “Have they sent you any money?” i asked his practical friend. “ Not a sou. That is like them. But I will recover all, and more. Ha-ha, I have an idea. I tell you. This morning I go to pay the visit of ceremony to a, little lady, very charming, that has said to me, ‘ Lucien, never come to this London without you visit me.’ ” He paused to mark the effect upon his friend. Ramonet merely grinned slowly and said, “ You tell Madame Guitard, no?” “ It is not well to tell everything,” responded Guitard with dignity. “ I tell Madame I visit friends when I am here; it is enough, yes? But my little lady is not here. I am desolate and I say to the servant, ‘you give her my card?’ She laugh, she is old and very ugly; she take care of the house; my little friend is from home. She give me the address and I may send the card. And it is- here.” ■With a dramatio gesture he produced it , and handed It over to Ramonet. The Pioard’s brows went up; he read aloud slowly and with a . peculiar Intonation, “ Great Tor ■Lodge, Broadcomhe, South Devon.” Then he looked up at Guitard whose little eyes were danoing. “ You will go?” he asked, “I will,” replied Guitard. “It Is for the. best, perhaps. You will come with me?" (To be continued.)