WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18889, 11 December 1924, Page 5

WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE.

(Copyright.)

CHAPTER XXXIII.

On one of the walls of the Annison's drawing room, near the windows that looked out on the Drive, an oval mirror hung. It reflected now the face of Helen Paramor; not the face her world had learned to know of a woman who had met life on its own terms, joined issue with it, bested it, remodelled it to suit her heart's desire, a woman selfconfident, self-contained, and unto herself sufficient; rather the face of a woman no stranger to uncertainties and cares, to ache of loneliness, irking sense of aimlessness and ihc care of unending struggle to hold and Safeguard what fortitude had won. She pored in anxiety undissembled upon those lineaments, as if demanding of them an answer to a question, that, so long as it remained a question, would not let her rest. Somewhere in the backwards of tho dwelling a bell grumbled; and from its dull and sullen signal the woman flinched. Iu two breaths the warm colour faded from her cheeks and swept back to flood them with an intenser heat. With an unconscious gesture she caught both hands up to her bosom and waited so, with every sense alert.

In the hallway to which her back was turned, the feet of a servant padded. Tho front door was opened, voices were audible at a pitch which rendered them indistinguishable one from tho other, with a deadened bang the door was closed. The servant's feet padded back the way they had come.

Someone came in from tho entrance hall, spied her out, stole up behind her. Tho play of her features, could he have observed them, would have appraised him that she wasn't being taken unawares. She closed her eyes, seemed scarce to breathe.

The man took her hand lightly on fingertips, lifted it a little, and bending low, kissed it.

" .Nelly—" he murmured. Transfigured in that instant, sho whirled to him, indignantly expostulaut. "Perley! you wretch! how dare you sneak up behind me and—and lick my hand?" Rex bowed to her half-laughing anger. " Just by way of a lick and a promise." Nursing the affronted hand, " Puppy 1" was the name a grudging sense of humour found for him. Showing him her back, Nelly moved over to the windows. " See here, Nelly—" He followed, but had lost a shade or two of his abundant assurance. " Why so stuffy this bright and beautiful morning ? Or does it always upset you to change the way you do your hair ?" " Oh!" She indicated indifferent surprise at the shrewdness of his observation. One hand strayed to the coiffure, whose arrangement, new within the hour, was in fact a radical departure from that of her custom. Her profile alone remained open to his inspection, as she stood looking out upon tho traffic of Riverside Drive. " Don't you like it?" " Don't think I do. Makes you look like somebody else," he puzzled—" Somebody I might have met some time and forgotten. No; can't remember. But be that as it may, I'm not very strong for the way it has re-acted on your temper." " You don't find my temper this morning to your taste/ either?" " One would think you weren't glad to see me."

Since she didn't respond to this in any way whatever, the man uneasily and reluctantly added: "Aren't you?" "Must I be?" " Do you realise I've gone four days without a glimpse of you ?" " Oh, yes." " I've called, and I've telephoned, any number of times, but you were always out. Suppose you got my flowers." " Every day. They were too lovely. Thank you." '' And my notes ? You might have answered."

" I knew I would see you soon." " D'you know ?—l'd begun to be afraid that you didn't want to see me again ?" " Why should you think that?" "You know well enough how a man in love plagues himself with idle fears." " Are you sure they were idle?" "No! That's the devil of being in the jam I'm in about you. How can I be sure you don't blame me for that scene Jill was fool enough to make here the other night?" " I don't blame vou, Perley." "Then why treat me like this?" the man grumbled. " I might be a stranger —somebody you didn't give a snap of your fingers for —" " If vou had let me know you were coming," Nelly told him. " very likely I should have put you off." " That's what I thought," " You find me in a bad frame of mind, my friend." She set her back to the win-dow-frame and let him remark how worried was her smile. " I am distrait—" " Oh, I'm sorry." Sincere contrition made his voice vibrant, genuine solicitude reshaped his bearing. " All of a sudden it came over me, just now, I couldn't live another hour without seeing you. That's the hell of being hit as hard as I am — when you're least looking for it, the damned thing fairly takes you by tho throat!"

Friendly ridicule alone could be of service in dealing with a man wrought up .o a pitch of frustrated passion such as .}ex portrayed. " Heavens, Perley!" And with a swift, idroit movement, Kelly passed him, evading the hand that sought to stay her, to jause a pace or two beyond his reach. "No!" he protested. "You don't believe me: Ton my honour —" "Oh, Perley!" the woman deprecated. "Swear rather by the inconstant moon!" " Don't be so cruel, Nelly!" he begged. " Oh, I can't blame you—-I know I've got a beastly record to live down. But with you to"help me live it down, with you to help me show the world that this Is what it is to me—the real thing, the one big thing my life has known—the thing that will last —" "Please! You know better, Perley," Nelly remonstrated, " who could knowbetter ?--love doesn't last."

"Neither does life," he tellingly countered, " but life is sweet, too. And we don't refuse to live, do we—just, because we know we can't live for ever ? Then why deny love solely because, it, too, must some day die?" " Sophistry, Perley! How can you expect me to forget those others—those many other loves of vours, that didn't last?"

" Don't forget them," Rex ingeniously riposted—" just be glad with me they didn't, and left me free for this love that will last —as long, at least, as I do!"

" Ah! That's rather clever, of you. Almost too clever."

" Can't be too clever if I'm to make you believe in me." "But why try?" she contended, with a face reproachful yet amused. " You know you mustn't. Even if I could make myself forget, it would be your duty in honour to remember for us both—that you're not free." He had a dark smile. " I soon will be." To eyes that winced and widened in dismay he nodded earnestly. " Jill and I had it out last night—frightful row! But it's all settled now—at last—thank God ! She's quitting me-—going West, to Reno." With a confused cry that held a note of pain, (die shrank away from aim. ''Reno!"

" That means," Rex grimly drove on, " to you and me, six months to wait, not more." "But this—!" Nolly's voice quavered and broke. " You mean that Jill—she s going to divorce you because of me. And interpreting too clearly his brazen smile, cried out in pain: " Oh, no!" To which the colourless voice of Andrews answered announcing: "Mrs. Rex!"

CHAPTERXXXTV. She must have heard their voices from the entrance-hall, for she was in the drawing room almost before the thundering import of those three syllables, enunciated by Andrews with such neat monotony, had taken full effect upon the intelligences of her husband and Neily Paramor; so quickly, indeed, that she surprise them while still Nelly's hands were lifted to Rex, beseeching contradiction of the hideous truth which he had just declared to her; was in time to see them fall apart, as if from each other's arms, iu a seizure of consternation that, however transient, wore for th 6 moment all the look of blackest. guilt. Pathetically ennobled by her passion, she halted in the middle of the room, her head high and her countenance a white flame of righteous anger, her eyes burning pools of russet incandescence, her mouth a red symbol of scorn; the slight body in its trim suit of tweeds vibrating like* a smitten lute-string. "I might have known r-!" Nellv accorded the girl a gracious inclination of her head, evenly } pronounced, "Good afternoon,. Mrs. Rex." "Jill!" Rex hoarsely cried, striding to her—"what the devil !" . She brushed past him as if in ignorance of his existence, confronted Nellv at closer quarters. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Paramor," she said, schooling her voice: "If I had known my husband was hero

"I quite understand, Mrs. Rex. Jill betrayed a moment of falter. it you will be* good enough, I--1 must talk to vou." "Certainly." , .-> , The angle of Jill's head, not her glance, singled out her husband. Pointedly she stipulated: "Alone." , • Rex collected himself for another effort, bore down upon her with a hectoring assumption of authority. Now see here, Jill , .-, The look that silenced and arrested him had the force of a kick; and before he could rally from it, Nelly added her persuasion. _ , . , "Please, Perley. Mrs. Rex has asked to speak to me* in private; it's hardly for vou to question her right. There .8 nobody in the study—if you care to wait. Rex slightly bowed, shrugged, walked without haste the length of the room, shut himself out of it. "Now. Mrs. Bex?". The <3,eep irony that informed those eyes whose attention was so constant to hers seemed to mystify the young woman, to trouble her with vague presentiments. Neither had she the art to gloss her gaucherie and coldly persevere in the purpose that had brought her. i-r "I only want to ask you something. She had a pause in pitiable hesitation, gloved hands fiercely gasped, j "Do you —love mv husband ?" . ' "Love Perley?" The brief laugh that went with this defied interpretation. Por the first time since Jill had entered the room she was released from that stead, fast regard, when Nelly's eyes, as n instinctively acknowledging the sardonic humour of those forces inscrutable- that shaped her destiny, lifted to the ceiling. Nellv went to the table, selected a cigarrette, struck a match. Her comment reached the waiting woman through thin drifts of smoke: "What a question!' "But do vou?" Apparently infuriated by what couldn't very well have been in her sight, anything but a piece of playacting, offensive by calculation, the girl flung at Nellv, trembling. "Do you?' Nelly puffed out the match. t ' "Perhaps—in, a way. And if I f l° •" ,1 c -1 " 'Perhaps'!—'in a way ! So, it means almost as much as that, to you, does it?—my husband's love!" "Perhaos—almost " • ; "But haven't you stopped to think what it means to me? It means everything to me-— I tell you. While to vou—to you !" "Yes, Mrs. Rex—to me?" "Why, to you he's just one more man to make a fool of—another victim to be vamped for your own amusement—another woman's husband to be stolen for the shabbv satisfaction of proving that you are still able to do it!"

(To be concluded to-morrow.)