SWEET IS REVENGE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1248, 30 January 1896, Page 15

SWEET IS REVENGE.

" Why, I thought I should find you in the hammock," Warrington said, pausing beside l}er.

" And then you could have this chair," said Glenn, amiably. " Well, if you like to arrange the cushions for me, and put me in, you may, lam too lazy else. But I expect I shall have to run immediacely, I want to ' make-up ' before dinner." "You are playing the Sleeping Beauty beforehand," he said, as he put her carefully into the crimson silk hammock, which was slung across the glasshouse over the ferns.

"With the Prince and all! Mind you do not laugh to-night as you did at rehearsal. You always set me off."

" I shall be too lost in admiration of you as the Beauty. It was Varly made me laugh before. He said I reminded him of a dentist about to operate. By the way, doesn't it strike you that he and Miss Earle are growing rather —you know —eh ?"

" Exactly," returned Glenn. " You are most lucid! What amuses me is that they have got to that guilty state when they think that everyone is looking at them. We are far too much taken up with our own affairs, but people on the verge of an engagement always regard themselves as the most important objects in the universe."

He laughed, and then reverted to the former subject. " It is not the first time that I have played Prince to you 1" he said, daringly. But Glenn did not change colour this time, nor was her smile in the least disturbed.

" No, but it will be the last, I expect," she said, lightly.

" Why ?" he asked, quickly. " I go home to-morrow." " And that means the end of all things ?"

" Que vouhz-vous '?" The dark eyes were 3till smiling at him. " Don't let me forget to give you back your ring. Did I tell you that Mrs Thornberry has asked me to stay with her ?" " And you are going ?" He spoke rather eagerly. " N —no. You see, I do not want dear Lewis to get mixed between us, and we are so alike !"

How daring she was! There came a little blaze into his blue eyes as ho looked at her, but she was playing with the hammock tassels, and did not see, apparently. " You are in another tableau to-night ?" he said, carelessly. " ' After the Ball,' is it not ?"

She nodded. " I have such a pretty gown for it 1 And Mr Trevor has promised me an ideal bouquet." " Trevor! Why didn't you tell me ? That is my business, not Trevor's." " I did not think you would mind — why should you ? It was very kind of him."

" I don't care about it, all the same. Glenn, if I send you a bouquet—" " Please do not. It would put me in such an awkward position after accepting his."

" You had no right to accept it. Ido not like it."

" It is only lying at my feet I" " Yes —and I suppose he is only lying at your feet in theory !" " Well, as long as it is only theory, I don't see that we need trouble ourselves," said Glenn, with a little laugh. " You acknowledge it then ?"

"It ? Please don't be vague! I acknowledge nothing—not even," meaningly, "your right to object to my accepting a handful of flowers from another man."

" You are incorrigible I" he said, fum-

ing. " Yes, that is what makes me so nice. ; There is the first bell! I must fly." The tableaux were a great success, and Miss Murry in " After the Ball," was pronounced charming. She certainly looked miserable to perfection, and surprised even herself, but perhaps the music helped her. For as the refrain was played softly on the violins, and the sound fell tori Glenn's ear, the sad eyes, which looked oat so wistfully over the heads of the ittudience, darkened with a mist of tears. " Many the hearts are aching 1 , If we could read them all; Many the hopes that are shattered, After the ball."

Once more the long corridor rose up before Glenn, with the strangely-dressed crowd moving to and fro at a little dis.

tance, and a man's voice was speaking earnestly of his own unworthiness- —" but I will try and make you happy—if you will be my wife." She wondered if Studholm Warrington remembered, and what Sybil would have said ?

After to-night she would never see him again. Well, he had never been her lover really, though they had both played for their revenge—and lost more than tbey won perhaps. Never after to-night ! Other men there might be in her life, but not this one. Bah ! as if she did not know half-a-dozen men with blue eyes and fair hair, who stood over six feet ! What did one matter ?

" Run along and change your dress for the ' Sleeping Beauty,' Glenn. Major Warrington is ready."

!> b Glenn ran, catching up the disputed bouquet as she went. She purposely pulled the pretty thing to pieces, in order to deck herself with the flowers as the " Sleeping Beauty," and was aware that Major Warrington saw and appreciated the fact by the angry light in his eyes. She looked up at him as the curtain went down through a round of applause, and a demure little smile curved her lips. Yes, she had succeeded ! " Glenn !" Studholm exclaimed, as she sprang up, "I want " But Glenn had fled. " My dear Major Warrington, let me congratulate jou on the most successful tableau of the evening. An old subject, but—er—quite new in its effective representation !" Studholm ; trying to force his way through the crowd at the wings, in wild pursuit of Glenn, could cheerfully have choked Mi- Thornberry, as that gentleman stopped him to pour forth his placid felicitations. " Thanks, awfully—but I really must go and change," he muttered, edging past. But a number of eager voices still detained him. " Oh, Major Warrington, are you not going to stay and see the next scene '?" and " Warrington, old fellow, how do I look ? Paint all right, eh ?" forced him to pause, chafe though he might at the del»y. He shook himself free at last, with many excuses, and began his hunt silently and swiftly. Had she gone to the dressing-room ? No, for then she must have crossed the stage again, and he should have seen her. The green-room was empty —so was the refreshment-room, where the hungry audience would presently be marshalled while the stage was cleared. As a last hope, Warrington sought the library. It was in darkness save for a single gas jet, which was turned low, and he was just going to leave it in despair, when his eyes, getting more used to the gloom, discovered a tall white figure looking almost ghost-like in the vague light.

Glenn was leaning against the mantlepiece, still in the Princess' costume, with her loose hair falling about her, and crowned with white flowers.

"Those are Trevor's flowers, I suppose," Studbolm said, crossly, corning up to her as she stood with one little white slipper resting on the fender. " Oh, is that you ?" she said, coolly. " Yes, these are my bouquet flowers. It was a shame to pull it to pieces, but I wanted them."

%' Why did you wear them ? I told you I didn't want you to." " And I told you that I failed to see your right to object." " You mean you are going to break off our engagement ?" " I could not break what never existed, and you know it was merely a pretence. But really your little play must come to an end now. I hope you have enjoyed it! Just to satisfy my curiosity, what was your reason ?"

" What was yours in making a fool of me at that dance ?"

" I did not," Glenn said, growing sud-denly-grave. "I admit that you havright on your side, you are naturally indignant, and I made a horrible mistake. But I am glad you have given me a chance to explain. At first I really thought I knew you, and had forgotten your face—until you called me Sybil. Then, of course, I ought to have spoken,

but some imp of darkness put it into my head that it would be easier to be Sybil for the evening than to explain. Ycu would find it out for 3'ourself, and I should never know. I was wrong—quite wrong. But do me justice and own that I could not possibly guess what was coming." He pulled his moustache in silence for a rainutf.

" I suppose not," he said, at last. " I am afraid I have behaved rather like a cad. I meant to be revenged on you when I walked up to you and said we were engaged before all those people, that was all."

"I think you succeeded," she returned, drilv.

"I was simply appalled ! Shall we cry quits, and bury the harchet ?" " I suppose we must, as far as that goes. But I have another score against you." " Another ! Oh, dear ! Well, what is it ?" she asked, with daintily lifted brows. " I don't think it was fair to try and make me fall in love with you," Warrington said, calmly.

Glenn coloured hotly, and drew back. " I am sorry it was so patent !" she said, satirically. Then, with a sudden laugh, " Well, have I succeeded ?"

" Absolutely ! It now only remains for me to propose to you in earnest, and for you to reject me with scorn." It was unfair of him to put her intentions so openly before her ; somehow, all the savour went out of it after that.

" I shall not," she said, perversely. " I haven't an atom of scorn left in me."

She looked up at the face above her for an instant, and then suddenly turned to him.

" Stud, will you marry me—really ?" she asked, quickly, before he could speak. " Yes, I will," he rejoined, so emphatically that-she laughed. " I have been longing to do this for a week," he said, slipping his arm round her, and drawing her to him. " Darling, do you think I should have resented it so if I hadn't cared —even then ? I believe you knew all the time that I was half mad about you, and you have used your power to torture me —you owe me something for that, Glenn !"

" Beally I think we ought to go and change our dresses," Glenn suggested, demurely, trying to extricate herself, both morally and physically. "Youare in the Prince's still I"

" And you are the Princess!" he retorted, touching the long tresses of hair falling about her shoulders. " Glenn, don't you think I might complete the tableau ? The Princess cannot awake to life and love, you know, until the Prince does this —and this !"—The Princess.