THE WHITE CAMELLIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 27 July 1907, Page 4

THE WHITE CAMELLIA.

j It was very unfortunate that Sir Andrew Sctun, who had a rooted horror of flirts, should, somewhat suddenly, have made the discovery that he was desperate".v in love with one. lie had always imagined himself proof against tiie wiles of women. Tad, grave, se-vere-looking, deeply in earnest over everything, and lacking in a sense of humor, he seemed to look over the heads of frivolous wom'enkind. "If he would only unbend, how charming he would lie!" was iho general verdict of the women. Hilt lie never iliil unbend.

Brought up with old-fashioned severity in a Scotch manse, ho had early learned to take a serious view of life,' and tlie sudden and unexpected p'unge—soon after he had attained Ills majority—into an English title, great wealth, Ami a London season was powerles* to undo the teaching of his youth. Perhaps lie would have continued to hold such an accomplished fljrt as Liiian Kavanah in abhorrence had he not been compelled to do her a service. The sleeve of her pink chitfon gown caught lire at n party one night, and it fell to him to put it out. Perhaps it was the startled terror in the usually laughing brown eyes, perhaps it was the quick turning to him for help. Hut, somehow or other, it was done, and Sir Andrew went home that night a changed man. He had fallen in love. \\ hen he called at the Kavanah's house the next day to inquire after Lilian, ahe received him with extraordinary gentleness. She drew up her sleeve, and showed him her arm, in gratitude. Thanks to his promptitude | there was scarcely a mark upon it. She had brown eyes set in a face of ivory whiteness, and she raised those dangerous eyes very sweetly to the grave eyes of fir Andrew. "How quick you were!" she said soft-

"I liad to bo quick," lie said, without any of the emotion that he was showing, but with a strange look. • Xever had Sir Andrew looked at a woman as lie was looking at Lilian TC». vanah. And all the devotion of a heart which had never yet loved rose up in a strong allegiance. Being a young man of deliberate action, onee that action was contemplated he did not hesitate as to liis course. He meant to try and win Lilian for his wife. It never seemed to occur to Sir Andrew, as day by day he met Miss Kavanah and was encouraged by her sweet looks and gentle speeches to pursue his suit, that as she flirted with other men so she might lie flirting with him. ''You take life too seriously, Sir Andrew," she said one afternoon, during a reception at her aunt's house, when ho was discussing some-social problems with her. "[ am afraid lam of the butterfly order. I think of nothing in life at all but the flowers, and of which of them I shall alight upon next. I never trouble my head about the suffering and sorrow of the world. It wouldn't help the sufferer if I sat with my handkerchief to my eyes all day, would it?" "Xo," he said, a little stiffly. "But ynii. with your hopeful spirit and ehavm of manner, might bring sunshine to many a clouded heart." "But I am not of that sort, Sir Andrew. t don't believe I ever did a kindness to anyone in my life. I honestly don't, think so. And certainly and most emphatically never at any expense to mvself," ' J

"You under rate yourself," he said gravely. "I do not," she said. "I- am a mere human butterfly, and my only thought is of the sunshine and the flowers."

"Xo wonder," be said, in a sudden outburst of admiration, "for you are like a flower yousdt— a white flower. Somehow' or otlii-r you always put me in mind of a white camellia." "Sir Andrew!" But there was a note of pelasure in the little laugh which accompanied the surprised ejaculation. Her face liad, indeed, the whiteness of tlie (lower in question She could never blush, and that, in her capacity of flirt, was a matter of deep regret to her. It would lmve been so delightful if she could have felt a rush of warm eolor to her cheeks like the women In fiction.

"There are some lovely white camellias in my aunt's conservatory," he said in a tone which had an unusual vibration in it. "May I give you one to wear in your hair to-night?" "Thank you," she said softly.

He sprang to his feet "Will you really wear it!" he said in a glad voice. "You must have such lovely ll.owers sent to you always. Will you really wear one if I give it to vou? We will choose one now."

Together they passed into the beautiful conservatory.

'•You will really wear it to-night?" lie said again, with almost a note of entreaty in his voice. "Of course 1 will." She spoke with ft little laugh, but her fingers held the blossom tenderly. "It is beautiful!" she said. '•lt will look lnore jpautiful in your mo-it beautiful hair," he said in a low voice. And his eyes told her a great deal as he shook hands with her a few minutes later.

Sir Andrew, though always faultlessly groomed, took special pains with his toilet that night, and any woman might have been proud at seeing such a man awaiting her.

She was late, but it would have been unlike a woman to be early when she knew a man was watching the door for her arrival. At last she fame, proudly beautiful, with her waxen face and glorious dark eve. Sir Andrew took a step forward to meet her, then stopped short —her beautiful brown hair was unadorned. She was not wealing his white camellia.

Xow, Sir Audrew. for all his reserve and gravity, had a sharp Scotch temper. It rose, and with it a dee]) Hush eame to his face. lie wheeled round, and entered into conversation with a friend who stood near. An hour or more passed lielore he went near Mi»s Kavanah. When he did >o his fate was as grey as stone. lie merely asked her for a dance. She had only one left. Possibly she hail reserved that. Having secured it. be left her, and when he eame to claim her he found a partner who was

every hit as cold and distant as And a few hours apo both pair* of rves kill been shining. and hands had been >o warmly damped. After a turn or two he led her into a seeluded corner, and they sat down.

"Why are you not wearing the white camellia?*' ho asked abruptly.

She raised her eyebrows, and looked at him very r-ohlly. He knew that, his tone hail not been very polite, but lie did not earo.

"I really don't think 1 am bound to irive you a reason, especially when you spenk to me like that, and have shown so little interest about it all the evenin"." I lev voire wa- hanshtv. and the look

in her eyes which he loved did not help

to .soothe hU pain. '•Von promised to wear it. So T have

a right to ask you why you did not." ''You have;' she answered, rising, and gathered up the train of brr dre>«. "I am not wearing the white camellia liPraiw T have given it away." And. not even Mopping to see the

rflVr-t of her words upon him. she swept down one of (he eorridors to a little drawing-room where she had left her mother.

She would not have ;-een lmuh If she hnd waited. Men can hide mortal wound-* hotter than they ean mere sr-rntches. 'T mivrlif h.nv known pomcthinp of this sort would end it," ran his hitter thoughts. » » » » » A winter's niirlii. and a lii-r dinnerparty at or.e of the ftveat houses in T.ondon. The very hoiiße where. )i.«s than ri year nco. fh> out of fhimes aliout a woman's arm hid lit a fire far more daneeroii* within :l man's hitherto wdt-iriinrdert heart.

TWy mi «! oppotite p*,U 0 f the huge t«ble. Thev had never met «in<<' that I uihappy da nee. was iittin? next to a well-known dS'dor. "I irnnf you to notiee that little darkInired servant onposite to its. jnsf pO- - round with the salad." said the doe[tor in a low voice. "There is finite a

romance about her. She is a French girl, mid is engaged to that tall footman. Look—there he is—he has taken the salad bowl from her—lie Uiiuks it is too heavy for her. Look at those two—spick and span, and, as I happen to know, truly happy. You would not think that he hail been almost to the bottom of the English Channel in a wrecked steamer, and that she had been saved from death by a flower." "A llower! That sounds odd!" "But its perfectly true. It was last

.June, when we had the garden-party at The hospital. J was house-surgeon there at the time. She had been brought in that morning in a raging brain-fever. We never thought she'd live through the night. She'd heard the day before of the loss of the steamer with her young man on board. She—her name is Camille

I le Brun—was highly delirious, and was talking about her lover incessantly. He had promised to bring her a llower from her old home in France, she said—a flower like her name—a camellia. She had got that idea in her head, and went on and on about it, getting weaker every minute.

"Of course she was not in one of the wards open to visitors. But during the Afternoon a ladv came to see how she was. She often went to the restaurant where th's unfortunate girl was a waitres*. and she had heard of her illness We let her come iu for a moment—l was in the ward at the time. "■Why don't you give her a camellia?' she said, with that wisdom which 1, for one, always attribute to women. 'That may quieten her.' •• 'We haven't a camellia in the hospital/ said one <*i' the nurses. 'The place is a perfect garden of flowers, but no camellias.' " '1 have a white camellia in my carriage.' she said slowly, and as if with 1 an effort. *1 will bring it up.' "And do you know what she did when she went down to her carriage for that flower? I was at the window and saw the little action—an action which I took for a blessing—she put the white camellia to her lips. Then he brought it up—such a superb bloom it was, white as snow. And she tenderly put it into i tlie hands of the raving girl. "My dear fellow, you never saw such a change! It was like magic. We could only stand and look on. The poor thing stopped her crie* at once, and broke into a little murmuring sound of content. And she pressed the llower to her breast, and kissed it, and wept over it. "He is not dead! Mon Dieu, he is not dead!' she whispered. 'He lias brought me the camellia!' "And in three minutes she was asleep. That camellia saved her life.

"When site awoke again, her lover sat beside tier lied. He had been rescued from the wreck." Sir Andrew's lips were quivering pitcously. For men can hide pain better than they can joy. So that was where his white camellia had gone—to save her life! And the woman whom he had lieen so ready to condemn as a flirt had kissed his flower—had parted with it reluctantly. "Look—Cainillo is serving the tady who saved her now. They are glancing at each other —look quickly!" Tie looked, hut he looked with dimming eves. He felt choking. The beautiful, soft brown eyes were glancing 90 gently up into the face of the dainty servingmaid. And then, as they would have been turned to her next-door' neighbor, to whom she had Wen speaking, again, they were arrested. They had suddenly seen the dim one sat. the other end of the table. And then it (lashed into her

nead that the doctor had been telling him the storv of the white camellia.

■\Yomen love to forgive the men they love; and Lilian Kavanah did not look away all at once. She looked across down the length of that long table, between the flowers and the glittering glass, with eyes that had never, since the moment when her lips had kissed the white camellia, been so soft and tender. And then she smiled. Such a sweet, slow, lovely smile. And she went on smiling until those unsteady lips so far away smiled too.

' l have never worn any camellias while you have been away," she said afterwards, when, lost in the crowd in the drawing-room, they sat out on a little enclosed balcony together. "1 have been waiting for you to give me another." "And this time, darling, if you give it away, you will tell me to whom you have given it?" His tone was almost pathetic. "I'm not so sure, of that." she said archly. "But 1 think"—and her voice grew wonderfully soff and gentle—"l think if you do not see me wearing it, you will feel that it is all right—that you will-trust me?" It was a question. And his grey eyes, flashing with his deep love and trust, answered the question to her complete satisfaction,