HONEYMOON HATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21515, 12 June 1933, Page 15

HONEYMOON HATE

CHAPTER XVll.—(Continued) Gail thanked Pietro politely, for that, too, and rather enjoyed the oldfashioned, grieved look on the face of her mother-in-law, who happened to bo present. There was one other consolation, also —Pietro must have given up the idea of taming her, or he wouldn't be going off so calmly, leaving her alone in the exquisitely restored pink and grey palace. After that, everything ' happened quickly, and Dantnrini had gono almost before she realised that the time was upon them. It was astonishing how she missod him; really strango when you came to analyse it, because he had been with her very little and almost never alone, except at meals when they were not out with her friends, or the friends were not being entertained by them. Ho had been away, too. a good deal, but now that he wasn t coming back for an indefinite time, perhaps a long time, it was extraordinary the difference his absence made in the girl's daily life. There was a dreadful emptiness in the palace. Gail seemed to hear echoes of footsteps that had gone elsewhere, far away. Gail had meant to revenge herself upon Dantarini for the Grand Duchess, after lie had left her alone, by getting into mischief; but somehow, when the opportunity came, she lot it 'slip. None of the men who would have made love to her, if she had let them, appealed to her at all. They seemed insignificant and lacking in individuality, compared to the dark, inscrutable person she had married for his palace and title.

My son trusts you completely, my flour," the old Princess said once, watching her daughter-in-law at a moonlight picnic to which both had been invited. " It's a great compliment. And I pay you the same. You do not 'need a duenna." " I don't think it's as much trust on Pietro's part as it is indifferenco," Gail answered. The elder woman looked at her sadly with the soft Irish eyes that were like faded, .but still beautiful, violets. " You don't know him very well," she said, " so I can't argue with you about his character." Gail longed to speak of the Grand Duchess, then, but she bit her lip, and let the thoughts in her heart gnaw like caged rats. She knew that Pietro wrote to bis mother often, twice as often as be wrote to her. But though a thrill rau through her veins whenever she saw his strong, thickly-black writing on an envelope dated New York, there was never anything inside it to keep the thrill alive. He might as well not have written to her at all, though complete silence would, of course have been insulting. " Pietro said so-and-so in his letter that came to-day," the old Princess would sometimes announce, when mother and daughter-in-law paid each other formal calls. But Gail never had any little items/of news to give in exchange. She had no regular correspondents at " home," as she still called Now York. Her school acquaintances had dropped away, and her " airs " had prevented her from making any devoted friends of her own age. Girls without money sho had imagined to bo mercenary if they " made up " to her. Girls with money could do better than Gail Grant if they wanted a friend. Now, however, she began to take count of those sho knew fairly well, some who had sent her cablegrams or presents when they read of her unexpected marriage to an Italian Prince. She had answered one or two of the girls, so that it wouldn't seem odd if she wrote to them again. She chose a young married woman, whose wedding had taken place after her own. After explaining rather elaborately that sho had wanted a season in Venice and at the Lido, sho asked:' Have you happened to meet my husband. Quickly an answer came, in a long, primrose-coloured, silver-monogrammed envelope, rather characteristic of th® in which Gail Grant had_ moved. With, the letter, addressed in the same sprawled handwriting, was a packet 01 newspapers, and instantly, before breaking the wrapper, Gail guessed why they had been sent. It hadn't occurred to her that the newspapers would have taken notice of Pietro arriving alone, not as a prince favouring New York society but as a tradesman prepaung to open a shop. << Mv dear,',' Sallie Marshall began, and oil down the first page Gail saw how she had splashed exclamation points and italics. " If I had a husband like that I wouldn't allow him to go three miles without me, to say nothing ot tlireo thousand! It's late in May, t e time everybody who is anybody rushes out of New York somewhere else, but honestly Ido believe this prmco ■ of yours is bound to stop the traffic. He s gorgeous and thrilling enough to bo a panic a wow, all on his own; but what; with his face ar.d figure and his wit (I haven't met him, but I hear be s a scream when he chooses to take the trouble) and his title, plus tjio Grand Duchess Sacha, this, little old town is his. You must bo mighty sure of yomself to trust him over here with the Duchess, but you have got the advantage of her in years. "I suppose he wrote you. all about the marvellous party she 1 him? I wasn t invited. Im not enough for Rhoda the Great, but the paper's were full of it, which waß vv she wanted, to give him a send ott. I send vou several copies that happened Tt to have boon thrown WW. it original of her to have had the party in her shop? But she is original ifnoth ncr else They say the place looked a dream, full of flowers, and the brocades and things she has to sell are priceless. She. evidently has a good bootlcgger. lor champagne is supposed to have flowed like water; and nobddy there was seen wearing a glass eyo next day. "They all drank the health of your Prince, and wished him luck in his venture which i> considered too amusing and chic. A prince and a grand duchcs* can do anything and get away with . His flhop being next door but one to the fair Rhoda's she and her guests (all the best names in New York, my dear none of our little lot') migrated over to his place and bad a kind of informal onening. He made a speech and thanked the Duchess. The only person I actually know who was there told me she'd never met with such charm and aplomb as his I don t know exactly what ' aplomb ' means, but it sound* liko something grand, which vour Prince is. \ assure you, my angel, lie's going to bo the rage of New York I I hope ho hns imported a whole shipload of things to sell, because all ho has will go liko wildfire. I hear that the apartment lie's furnishing tor himself over his shop is beautiful, in such. perfect taste I I expect he will give teas and dinners in it. I haven't heard a woman mention his name who isn't wild about Prince Dantarini. They will beggar themselves buying

By MRS. C. N. WILLIAMSON Author of " Scarlet Runner," "Frozen Slippirs," etc

(COPYRIGHT)

A'GRIPPING STORY OF LOVE AND ADVENTURE

his tables and chairs, to have an excuse to get acquainted with him, and he-will make a howling success. "Arc you coming over to join your princely boy friend soon? Or what? L've heard a few whispers about a happy event expected, and that is why vou staved behind. Is it true? If so I must get an' appropriate 'present ready —Love from Sally." As Gail read this letter on to the end, her colour changed from pink to white and brighter pink again. Somehow the new shock each paragraph gave was deadened by the greater shock at the close. So people at home were surmising that she d remained in Italy whilo her husband went to New YorK because —she was going to have a child! This thought struck her with the same strangeness it would have held for her if she were still Gail Grant. How dare anyone suggest such an idea! . Then she remembered. Nobody knew, unless it were the old Princess, and perhaps not even she, what marriage meant —or, rather, how little it meant —for her and Pietro Dantarini. She saw how natural it was, after all, for people to imagine that a bride, married in November, might in May know that before inanj more months should pass over her happy head she would become a mother. A mother' . Gail had never even imagined herself as a possible mother, but now the thought pressed closelj upon her, overwhelmed her like c warm, summer wave of the rainbowtinted Adriatic, such a wave as had often caught hor joyously on the beacli at Lido. A child ot hers and Pietro's. She trembled from head to foot a 1 the bare fancy and involuntarily hei hand groped for the old pearls, hidder in her bosom under her frock. She remembered what Pietro had said oJ the child to be born of Niccolc Giustiniani and tlie doge's daughter "A child is meant to draw marriec lovers together. This one was to teai them apart." A certain dreaminess had softenec the Prince's glacier-grey eyes as lit told that tale of tragic love. Gail hat seen it, and the look had lingered ir her memory, as if it had been part o the story itself. Suddenly she knew that it would b< glorious, worth living or dying for, t< bear Pietro Dantarini a son, and t< have him adore her for herself and fo: the child Of course, it could never be, now even if it might once have been' pos sible. The Grand Duchess Sacha ha( got him! She opened the newspapers wit! fingers so fiercely eager that tin papers were torn. But the paragraph marked by Sallie Marshall were sti intact. There were no interviews wit! Pietro. " The Prince refuses to bi interviewed," she read. But in spit* of him the camei i men had got snap shots. In one h.' was laughing. Xr another he looked angry. That wa the ono in which the Duchess hac been snapped meeting him at the ship So she had met him! But, of course she would. Pietro hadn't mentionet that in any letter. But, of course, hi wouldn't! Gail wanted to hate him, but th< latent sense of justice inherited fron her father boiled up to the surface Slie had been horrible to Pietro, fron the very beginning of their acquaint ance. Whatever his reason might Ix for marrying her and not the mag nificent • I?hoda, who evidently wor shipped him, he had married her; ant she being young and beautifu (younger than Rhoda!) she had hat her chance of winning his love. Supposing—just supposing—she hat been sweet and seductive to him 01 their wedding night, instead of strik ing him as hard as she could, ant telling him to go to h— because sh hated him. Well, he was a man! Yoi had only to look at that hard, Hrl face of his to realise his controlled, ye immense capacity for passion. (To bo continued daily)