STRAY LEAVES

Southland Times, Issue 20014, 30 October 1926, Page 13

STRAY LEAVES

THE LOVING HEART

(By

Peter Brooke.)

Sweet old Lady of the Street of the Sainted Fathers. “La belle vieille dame de la rue des Saint-peres.” That is what they used to call her. When the rain poured down like an ice-cold sheet, and the wind whistled bitterly around the corners, cutting venomously through the ragged holes in their coats, they turned, these poor homeless ones, with hopeful faces to the door of her blessed home. Half dead with the cold, famished, hollow-cheeked, they smiled as they knocked eagerly on the stout old panelling. Pale smiles, ghostly smiles, which faded sadly. . . .

Madame La Givrette opened the door then, welcoming them into the warm fireside, where, poor rascals, they would eat their one satisfactory meal, which the dear old Lady could just afford to supply them with each day. A little mob of homeless, shelterless boys, they had seemed to her, when she first saw them, pressing their grubby noses against the window panes of a “patisserie.” Eating with their eyes that wonderful array of jam tarts, cakes and buns, digesting them with their far too imaginative minds, what a pathetic picture they had inscribed upon her heart. . . . And when she had spoken to them softly, opening to them prqspects of such impossible happiness that the tears had coursed down her wrinkled cheeks at the terrible pathos of it! . . . Cruel Paris!

And there they sat, stuffing themselves hand over fist, their eyes travelling from confection to confection, planning a systematic campaign against the good things which the Sweet Old Lady saw fit to provide them with.

And after they had cleaned the dishes of any encumbrances such as a crumb or a spot of jam, they would sit by the generous blazing fire and gaze with adoring eyes at the blessed Madame La Givrette. Indeed Madame La Givrette seemed like an old, pale lady, with the gentle peep of a smile in her clear eyes. Her lace frills, as white as mountain snow; her hands as fine and delicate as those of any Queen, with just a plain gold ring, shining from her finger; a long black skirt, trailing down to her small feet. Sweet Old Lady. .. . And away they trooped, contented, reflecting that there are angels upon earth, even if they do take the shape of Sweet Old Ladies.

It was reputed that Mai Cousson was the most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most wicked young actress in Paris. She had, it was said, a flair for inveigling the royalty and nobility up to the highest degree into her tantalising clutches. She would fleece a millionaire with, less compunction than an average man has in killing a rat.

The people of Paris hailed her as a National money-getter, they raided her with mad hospitality; orgies were held in her honour. ~ . .

Beautiful wicked Mai Cousson. Later she herself was caught in the toils of love, and this not uncertainly. Metaphorically she threw herself at the feet of her man, begging him to take her, a soiled butterfly as she was. . . . But he had scorned her. Her—the most adored young beauty in the world, the very Pride of Paris. So-what did she do, this beautiful produce of the gay metropolis, where the Moulin Rouge whirls its giddy wings to the fickle breeze? She threw her fortune into the lap of charity and crawled, pathetic and repentent, to her loved one. . . . she had married him. And then Jean La Givrette had died fighting for his country. Poor Sweet Old Lady of the Street of the Sainted Fathers. . . .