SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 89

SHORT STORIES.

THE SECOND TEST, By Coxstaxce Clyde. She came down Ihs steps of the cheap lcdgirig-house, a dirty girl gazing up with a smile at her as she passed. "Miss — Denhain!' he exclaimed. He would have moved on with but the raising of his hat, but his voice had spoken before he knew. "You — Herbert — Mr Calderton :"' Her face was a moving picture of many emotions, then smiled itself into conventional courtesy. ''I thought you had forgotten me." he heard himself say inanely. A pricKing flush ro°e to his face. It was ridiculous tl'at his eyes should lower before the smile — of amusement,, was it? — in hers. "I lemember you. I remember you very well, Mr Calderton." She left her shab-bily-gloved hand in his with friendly coolness. "Shall we walk along a little? I suppose you are not so much accustomed to all this — "' her hand made a gesture that took in the paper-strewn, sordid street — "as I am. Yes, I remember you very well. You were the millionaire who wanted to be loved for himself alone!" He glanced at her blankly, angrily. ''You — you laugh at it." '"Oh, surely it's permitted me, since I was the poor unfortunate wretch that got the worst of it — I, yearling to be v salthy, no£ understanding your Lord of Burleig'h plan in the slightest, missing the on© real 'catch' that I had dreamt of all my'rot too prosperous girlhood. Oh. yes, I can laugh, seeing that I showed up worst, as I did — didn't I?" Be was silent. His eyes fell earthwards, and saw her shoes near his own — little poor-looking sices, wrinkled, mud bespattered. Somehow he was not so sure. "Isn't it nice we can talk of it so frankly, it all having happened so long ago — quite ten years, isn't it?"' She walked beside him, a shabby figure, gentlevoiced, yet suggesting the judge. "I can imagine well how you must havo rehearsed the seene — you millionaires are so lomantic — (you loved me poor, love me no less that I reveal myself rich). Curious paradox. You delight in then showering upon me the very wealth which you had admired me for despising! But I didn't answer to my cue ; got angry. You didn't understand that I couldn't because I was preparing my own little play too." He was silent. What could they say for them? elves? — women — wori.en whom men yearned to worship for thedi unworldliness and selfless low! She lifted a parcel from one arm to the other, and stepped carefully on one side tr> avoid a pool. "You see, I'd been poor al my life, and I wanted to be rich — just in the conventional way, through marriage and the man. I used to dream, of being loved by a rich man who was everything noble besides. Oh, I also had mv little play ready for acting. I used to fancy how he would come to see me and love me at once, and know not a moment's peace till lie had showered wealth galore upon me to uiake up for all I had had to do ■without. He was always coming to me, that prince of the world, that man of power ; always impatient till he had rapped me up with his wealth and his love." She stole a look at his face ; but Ids eyes were on the sordid street. '"He was so manly, that Croesus hero, suoh a- stiong, impatient lover — so beautifully indignant that such a woman as I had ever known poverty, so resolute to take me from it willy nilly — so able to take me ?~-om it." I She signed a little, as one who won- | dered, silently questioning. "Well, it's of ihe past and done with. I slboU never win my hero now or even see himafairoff. But, oh. when will arise again the> simple unanalytical hero who will take us as we are, th^ be.r-erker man. who ! will boar away the woman, lie loves by the i pow er of his wealth, which is the vi et 1 'ennis of to-day — Year hc-r away ai.d place j her in the fortress of his millions, where Poverty the caitiff can never touch her more? The man who will ju«t be content to know that she? is his, not caring co much why or wlwrefore she comes i£ only she comes. Mr Caldeiton, if you i could only feel like that for a few minutes ! till you apt accustomed w it; if only you would act in my play til! it became a leality — my plaj-, n-ot yours!" j She* looted at hi in earnestly, strangely, I daiingly. Th>e thin face was aglow; the j fyts were intense with love, and something more than ;ove. A fire leapt to his ow n gaze. ! "For a minute — -for one moment only,

act in my play, Herbert. Be the man who loves — loves so strongly that he can think only of one thing, that he wants her, that "he must have tier whatever her reasons for coming! You are fiee still, Herbert — you can respond." "I can respond," he repeated eagerly, hypnotised. "Yes, now — now," she exclaimed with strange energy. "See, here is every circumstance needed for the ordeal." Sh-3 stopped in the street, her shabbily-gloved hands pressing eac-h other. "Let us have the tsst again ! Only it's a test for you thi* time — not me. It was a test for you the first time, if you'd only known it. A->k ir.e- again! Ask me now!" There Mas a fuH minute's silence. No eound but the rattle of a milk-cart, the cry of a slum child. Hex gaze was tense, unashamed ! In a moment his answered hers. A plot to capture his heart anew, _ the clever scheme of a desperate woman. Sucttesstess these ten years in her mercenary plans' What did it matter? All was as nothing compa;ed to the persuasion of those eyes, th? magic of that compelling voice. He took bar hands in his. "Mildred, I ask you to be my wife!" "Herbert, I- consent. Now will you hail a taxi and come to tea with me- at Regent street, as my yearly philanthropic visit" to the ter-sment people as one" of themselves is just over. Did I mention, by the way, that an unknown unclp died two years ago, and that I am now one of the richest women in England?"