SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14000, 4 March 1909, Page 3

SHORT STORY.

JUST A WOMAN AFTER ALL.

"I KNOW what makes gentlemen stay old bachelors," piped precocious Miss Petsey, " it's just all selfishness, for Miss —"

She was not allowed to mention the namo of the person of whom sho had borrowed her wisdom. For just then she was silenced by a fleet, authoritative look from the grey eyes of an uncommonly pretty girl, who was sitting a little apart from the others. Then, snatching tip the unwilling kitten, which had fled from her too violent caresses a moment before, Petsey pirouetted out of the room with a wicked backward glance at the pretty girl. "It may lie," Dick Guernsey remarked, as if his opinion of the matter was demandcd; although the selfishness might, perhaps, bo charged to the opposite parties." " Do you claim that women stay single by choice, and that our choice is actuated by selfishness?" Miss Horatia queried in dudgeon.

Miss Horatia was a spinster herself, of some forty-odd years, with an acidulated expression and a severe angularity of features. In her far corner of the room the pretty girl impatiently dropped her bit of dainty needlework.

" Dick thinks, no doubt, that a woman is shockingly degenerate when she prefers her independence instead of a life spent in ministering to the ease and vanity of some lordly master." she said, with a -little bubble of mocking laughter. - t "Pshaw!" Guernsey exclaimed in blunt disgust. After a moment ho arose from bis seat, and walked over to her. ~ Do you imagine/' said he, looking gravely down at her from his lordly altitude of six feet and a fraction, " do you imagine, Doro, that so few men appreciate a really worthy woman? Do you suppose that there are so few men capable of a selfless and exalted love?—a love which would sacrifice everything but honour to ensure the loved one's best and highest, happiness? Are you such a cynic, such a misanthrope, whore we are concerned, Doro?" Doro had picked up her needlework again, and she did not deign to lift her eyes from it. There was an unwonted crimson on her pretty checks, and her proud lips tightened a little, as if with repressed feeling of some sort. S

" I'm not conscious of having exploited myself as an antagonist of the superior sex. It was you who charged us with selfishness, was it not?" Doro replied sweetly, with just the least hint of irony in her pretty voice. Guernsey regarded her for a moment in a silence which was half-amusement and half-anger. Then, with a barely perceptible shrug of his big, handsome shoulders, he walked back to his seat. V,

" Why didn't you marry, Dick? It's quite time you were settled in a home of your own," Miss Horatia said to him, as ho lounged into the sofa corner beside her rocker.- .'• ..,, ~':: ,-,>

Guernsey shot a swift, covert glance back at Doro; and his eyes— those laughing, inscrutable eyes of northern blue !— twinkled at some subtle ;change he detected in "her suddenly uplifted face. . " Well, Aunt Rasha/ I'm considering the matter seriously, i don't you know," he announced in- a somewhat confidential undertone. ■" *'

"My dear"boy, you could have told me nothing which could please me so much. Only, I trust, Dick, you have chosen wisely," said Aunt Rasha, her hard features softening as she gazed at the stalwart young follow, who was dearer to her than any other human creature had over been.

" I think, I believe, that I have chosen wisely," Dick replied with a second sly glance at Doro from the corners of those keen, merry eyes. " Who is she?" Aunt Horatia asked in a low tone.

"Well," Dick answered slowly, as if particular about his exact words, " .I'll present you some day, and I'm certain you will be pleased." "I hope she will bo sensible and goodtempered," sighed the spinster. " She has a fine intellect," Dick declared, "and she doesn't squander her power in striving to revolutionise the human nature of six thousand years, or in struggling for a crown and sceptre to which she was not born. She has some old-fashioned, domestic tastes, her .heart is tender and pitiful; and she is a little inclined to romance .and sentiment, without which a woman is *liko a songless bird or a scsntless flower. She has faults; but those faults only make her the more womanly and endearing." " Oh, you look at her with the eyes of a lover. I daresay she is as ordinary as" sniffed Miss Horatia, and then she paused. For at that •juncture' a newcomer came into the cosy parlour, bringing with nrm a waft of the perfumed breezes from; the spring world outside. "Why, Edgar, what a delightful surprise!" cried Doro, starting to her feet and impulsively holding out both her hands to him.

Edgar Ormsby was a- little portly and florid and coarse; but bis expression was agreeable. And if he was not precisely a gentleman, he was undoubtedly rich. Ho had long manifested an ardent admiration for Dorothy Keith. But Doro** had never shown him the slightest causo for encouragement until to-night. Her apparent delight at his coming almost bewildered him; and he seemed capable of nothing except to hold thoso pretty hands and gaze at her. " Hollo, Orlnsby 1 When did you got back?" said Dick.

But Doro had drawn Ormsby over to her corner of the room, and ho was rapturously oblivious to any other presence than her own.

During a few moments before Ormsby's arrival, Dick had sat grinning to himself in the screen of the spinster's high-backed rocker.

But now the grin had changed to a frown; and he stared at Doro in astonishment, and with a displeasure he did not attempt to conceal.

Ho continued to chat with his aunt; but ho heard nothing but Doro's sweet, low laughter; ho saw nothing but. Doro's animated face, with that curious unfamiliar look, which nernlexcd him beyond measure. The evening seemed interminable to him, and it was with a strange sense. depression that he arose to depart. " Oh, Dick, stay a moment, please," called Doro, hastening across to him and pulling her clumsy companion after her. "Well?" Dick queried drily, as ho halted with one hand on the door-knob. " Oh, wo only wanted your congratulations," she explained flippantly. "I have promised to marry Mr. Ormsby." Dick recoiled with a quiver of his whole frameas a tree quivers when tho ax© cleaves its heart!

For a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes, both faces pale as death. And whatever misunderstanding had oxisted between them, it was rent away in that lovig, startled look, and the inmost depths, of each heart was bared to the other. .

Dick was tho first to recover his composure He lifted ono hand slowly, gropingly, and brushed it across, his brows, as if to dissolve that too potent spell. "You have surprised me, D<m>,'' he managed to say nt length. " But X congratulate you both, assuredly, and with all my heart." How ho got out of the house, ho could never recollect. But he took with him the memorya memory which would never ceaso to haunt him until his heart ceased to boat!of Doro's. death-pal© face, and tho startled agony of her fixed and dilated eyes. All the nonsense I talKed about having decided to marry, Doro believed absolutely and literally," ho reflected in bitterest remorse. "I only wanted to pique her— punish her for her mockery and pretended independence! And I have driven her into the arms of a. man she will loatho in a month. Alas, poor Doro, poorDoro." It was not for himself that Dick sorrowed; it was for Dorponly for Dorp! Could re have effected hor happiness ho could have endured all else.

Dick was a miserable man during the next few months. For every ill which Doro might suffor, /or ©very tear she mignt shed, he felt that his, and his alone, was the guilt.

Doro would be a dowerless bride. Her small inheritance would scarcely have educated her and maintained her since, had it been handled by a guardian less prudent than Miss Horatia. " > ",' But it never occurred to Dick that she might reconcile herself to a union = with a man she disliked, merely'because he could endow her with rank and riches. Ho knew his love I

Wealth would never tempt Doro. And her heart is all my. own—that J discovered too late," he said to himself. , Another had discovered it, too, as Dick learned a few minutes afterward! • , He had just descended the steps' of Miss Horaiia's house, and had walked - around one corner of the building into a short street which ended at his own avenue. One side was flanked by high blank walls, and on the opposite side, were the shadowy grounds of a detached residence, which was barely visible among the thick trees and shrubbery. It was a lonely spot, and especially so in the gloom of a cloudy night. It was late in the evening; but Dick had gone that way too often to apprehend any molestation.

But ho had barely turned the corner, when a man emerged from behind a big tree trunk, and stopped directly in his path. " I've been waiting for you, Guernsey. I came hero determined to waylay you and shoot you at sight," the man said in hoarse tones.

That a 'interesting information, my friend," Dick rejoined coolly. To what am I indebted for such a sanguinary determination?" <•

fho man moved a pace nearer, when Dick stopped him. "Stay where you are, if you please; you are quite close enough," Dick warned him sternly. "Oh, you needn't be afraid; I'm not as much of a villain as I imagined I was; I don't want any man's blood on my hands and conscience,'.' the other said sadly. Dick started, and peered wonderingly through the gloom. "Great God! Is that you, Ormsby?" he exclaimed incredulously. "In the nam© of all that's mysterious, why did you want to send me out. of the world?"

" Because," said Ormsby, stepping a pace nearer, now unhindered, " because, it is you whom Doro loves."

Ormsby's eyes flamed bloodshot from his pallid face. There was something so tragic in his look and manner that Dick kept silence for vory*pity. " I ought to have known it the night she went to you for congratulations," the other continued despairingly. "It was in her face; it was in yours. I suppose I did not know it, even then ; but I wouldn't believe it. I wanted to believe she was mine— fool that I have been!"

" See here, Ormsby, I can't listen to such folly," Dick began, only to be interrupted by the other. " I know I am a boor," he resumed hurriedly. " I know lam unworthy a dainty little woman like Doro. But I have some sense of —enough to release her from her promise, enough to restore her to the man sho loves! But it's hard, Guernsey; it's almost too much for a rough selfish fellow like me " , Dick choked. He could not have uttered a syllable to have saved his life. " I've thought it all out since I've been standing here," the other continued. " 1 was a madman when I wanted to harm you— Doro's love 1 Perhaps she will recollect me with respect now, and a little affection. And my doctor has told mo that any excitement is dangerous for me—l— that—"

Ho stammered, gasped, staggered, and then swayed forward heavily. Dick put out his arms to prevent the other from falling. But as he did so there was a sudden wild cry, and Doro flung herself between the two men.

From a window she had happened to hear Ormsby's tragic tones, and to see his excited gestures. Sho had fancied that he meant harm 'to Dick ; and she had rushed out of the house in an agony of terror, to reach the spot just as sho did. Ormsby had swayed against the wall, and then dropped slowly to the ground. He must have died as he fell. And his dying sacrifice proved him to be a hero; and as a hero he would live in the hearts of those two who bent mournfully over him. It was months' before Dick ventured to claim Doro for his own.

"And I suppose you will spend the remainder of your life in meekly ministering to the case and vanity of.your, lordly master," Dick laughed, with his lips on her own. ■•*

" Oh, Dick, don't remind mo of my old silly speeches. A woman is bound to be a woman as long as the world rolls round and nothing else, no matter what she may pretend I" said Doro, pouting.