JACK'S ENGAGEMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12872, 6 January 1906, Page 2

JACK'S ENGAGEMENT.

Jack Car.-* -i was a good fellow, a pr*-j eminently g<» d fellow, but lie bad a; weakness for all womankind that positive-! ly made » slave of him. to any one <>i til em or to all of them, who might desire to exercise aiithority over him. Now with me it was different I liked women well enough, but I chafed un<ier authority, and as soon as any one of them to whom 1 might have become attentive appeared to take that as an indication that I was in love with her, and presumed upon it to lxinme even to the slightest, extent dictatorial, I forthwith asserted my manhood and sought out some other woman. Jack said I did this because I was never really* in love, and I didn't know the power a woman could exercise over a man in that condition. Of course, I laughed him to scorn, because I knew my strength and Jack's weakness, and insisted {hat, while some men might be slaves, there were others who inherited the spirit of liberty and could not ignore it, even if thev wanted to. A great source of delight to me was Jack's engagement to what he said was the only woman on earth. I had never seen her. and Jack had talked to me about her until I didn't want to see her, but out of regard for him I. never intimated what I thought about this incomparable young woman. One day in August Jack came round to my office and insisted that I should go down to a summer hotel on the sh"-re. I was to take my summer vacation, and ho wanted me to go there because ho had some friends lie wanted me to meet, and one of them was a girl he was sore was the girl Fate had intended for me. " There are some awfully nice people down there, and you know I can't get off until September, except over .Sunday." I agreed at last to Jack's im]K>rtunities. and went to the resort he designated, he accompanying me and presenting me to his friends. Then he went back homo again, after the Sunday was over, and I was left to my own devices. Ethel Lind. -the young woman he had mentioned as the one woman in the- world for me. was certainly a woman of unusual force of character, hut she had very evidently not met a man of my type before, for within two days I felt sure that I could twist her aroncd my fingers if I wanted to. * At the same time I am free to acknowledge that she did exercise a power over me that no woman- had ever exercised ov*r me. It was a delightful sensation; yet, it was more so to feel that, while she "had me in the thrall, it was I who was master of the situation, and could determine what, the end of it was to be. "Miss Lind," I said one evening as we sat on the balcony of the hotel, " I have known yon for a week, and do you know that- what was predicted of my meeting you is coming true?" "What was the prediction, Mr Poe?" she asked, with a little start of nervousness of consciousness that I was about to say what she desired me to say above all things. "My friend Carson has been bantering me a long time about the influence of woman upon the disengaged mind of man," I began, slowly. "Is your mind disengaged?" " Never more so." "And y:>i:r heart?" she asked, with a rinh. I thought. She was actually pleading. I could tell it. But. tlwn, how couM she help it? All women are very much the same emotionally. "That was disengaged," I said, with a pretty strong accent on the "was." " And it isn't now?" She was actually pleading, I could tell it from her peculiar intonation. "I am not so sure," I said, attempting to take her hand, which she covlv resented. " " She laughed nervouslv. "Who has set up a claim against it, Mr Poe?" she asked with delightful innocence. The moon had been under a stray cloud, but at this moment it came out in dazzling splendour, and as the light fell -upon her face I felt for the first time that 1 was in love, desperately in love, and 1 began to have a dread that something was going to happen to destroy my happiness. I have understood since that either men or women when in love have this same experience. I was having it now, hut I encouraged myself that victory - was mine, anyway, ami 1 must not show the white feather. * So I laughed when she asked me. " Oh!" I said. " Xobody has. but I think if somebody wanted "to establish a claim it would not be contested." What I would have said next will never be known, but I was ready to sav something I was uever" before ready to say. for just at that moment I heard a man's" footsteps on the balcony, and the next minute Jack came round the corner. "Oh, I beg your pardon." he cried, s'.a-ting back in -mock dismay. " Htally, 1 duln'i know that you were within wiles/' "And I'm sure 1 didn't know you were any nearer." I responded in Ho spirit, far there are time? wheu a man'* temper is not improved by the «. espetlcd presence of a third party! Miss L;n«l merely IsMffhed. IWiiig-.the tnoni.:;! ■jb the <-* c. *he couldn't, vcjy well «5«» :!;tft»;*c. :»«- ;hc woman can"* display lu: d;.«|>!c*<.w.ix an« iscr such rcreotmtanrtM. "We really ite?cr."e «\j»*-i;«njj yoy. Mr Carson," she mi<J. h;»rs4« t*j?h «;un. "I w«yn't fcxrK<;j«i£ »?y*<3{." ht ex plained. " bnt by a lUkky »!ti»kc I »*» enabled to pet off for ;brcc or f*««jr day*. xn*\ where faster i*>n!«i I tmac siwti 8hi»!" 1 think I forgo; n ,y tna&csm at tS«j« jwint and gtowlcd. I know Cm <on fctighcri and I think Mi** Lind Mnilrd. b;s? I ;->ui !i:i>: sure of sli.it. Fortunately, s" «vs.« .<?..«? ;«» nVlUri;. . a:-.I o;tr ji-isfy <»>-5-.*: ;jj> »:» ..- »;:«»*« sa-oc. •I.w-k ai:d I to our pv.n:<. As 'it happened tin* cts: mojniftf. I had an vrh Mis* I,ju,j. ;<r.4 I set Mr Carson the -hiif and IcU him | -rs ion;: oar br.mK." _ "\es. Mie rt*p«K<ic<! tviib .< ;,:;;■; «•{ ' seraphic modulation in her voke.

j " I wanted to kill him last night." ! "Why didn't yon?"—atd she 1-< .i . up to my eyes pleadingly j This was the time when I could c- ; ; ; have said all that was necessary. h;;t. .:-.- ! thought of my triumph was 4<;« i:rc.it \ me. and I made an evasive reply - ' fishly enjoyed the poor girl's apparent !;<-.- ; lessness. Men are cr::el at time--. \ All that morning I pursued the .<--,»:;■.« : -i ics and when we returned to the bote" • was more of a tyrant than ever. She spent part of the afterr.r.n tri:h Jack, during which I wasn't fec'ing t~n tyrannical, but I wasn't afraid of .lac*;. He had r- sweetheart who was unalterably his. and he as much hers, and he was a safe man to trust- with ar.y other fcllowV sweetheart. Late in the afternoon Jack and I had gone out on the lawn to wait for the ladies. who always appeared there an hour before dinner. " Well, old man." he said, " what do you think of Miss bind by this time?" " You were right • about h-?r," I responded. "How?" " Well, as to her attractiveness. I never saw a woman more so." " Does she come your way ?" " I should say she did. but I'm not exert - ing myself much. I'm as much in love with her as she is with me, but I can conceal it?" "Can't she conceal it!" " She thinks she can. but she can't. Why. old fellow, the woman doesn't live who can' hide her true feelings from mp in such a matter. She's mine, sure, and I'll let you be best man, and thank you for introducing me besides." Jack laughed. It seemed to be qnitc the appropriate place to laugh too; bt»! somehow I didn't like it. There arc mor« laughs ban one kind. As Jack was about to reply Miss Lind's aunt. Miss Lind. and a man l"did not know camo towards us from the -hotel, and we arose from the grass to meet them. Ktehel's smile when she spoke to me was something divine. "Do you know Mr Drane. Mr P«??" said M>ss Lind's aunt, and I shook bands with the stranger after Jack had greeted him most warmly. "Jack, my boy." said Mr. Dra.-e. who was a man of sixty and quite fatherly, " I have just heard the good news, and let mo congratulate you. And Ethel," he said, turning to Miss Lind, "you have certainly found a pearl of great price." I was da7.ed for an instant, and then their atrocious plot dawned nprn mo. " Jack." I stammered. " what is tho meaning of all this? I didn't——" Jack laughed, and it rasped like a file on a tender tooth. "Why. Mr Poe." cackkd the voting woman in that egregiously silly way some women have, "didn't you know Jack and I were engaged?" How should I know she and Jack were engaged? He had never told me the name of that- incomparable young woma of hi*, and I never thought enough of her to ask him what it was.. And now 1 thought less of her thsn ever! >