TERENCE O’ROURKE.

Thames Star, Volume LX, Issue 16855, 4 August 1926, Page 3

TERENCE O’ROURKE.

CHAPTER I. THE CAFE DE LA PATX. To his infinite satisfaction, his hail carried to the ears for which it was pitched. Out of the mob a man came shouldering his way and looking about him with uncertainty. A tall man lip was, noticeable lor a length of limb which seemed great, yet was strictly proportioned to the remainder of his huge bulk, moving with the unstudied grace that appertains unto great strength and bodily vigour. He caught sight of the stout m’siour and a broad, glad grin overspread his countenance—a face clean-shaved and burned darkly by tropic suns, with a nose and a slightly lengthened upper lip that betokened Celtic- parentage ; a face in all attractive, broadly modelled, mobile, and made luminous by eyes of grey, steadfast, yet alert. “Chambret, be all that’s lucky!” he cried joyously. “Faith, ’twas no more than the minute gone that I was wishing I might see ye!” He came up to Chambret’s table, and the two shook hands, gravely, after the English fashion, eyeing each the other to see what changes the years might have wrought in his personal appearance. “I, too,” said Cli&mbret, “was wishing that I might see you. My friend, 1 give you my word that I have waited here, watching for one O’Rourke for a solid week.” “Is it so, indeed?” O’Rourke sat down, favouring the Frenchman with a sharply inquiring glance. “And foy why did ye not come to me lodgings? Such as they are,” he deprecated, with a transient thought of how little he should care to have another intrude upon the bare, mean room lie called his home. “Where was .1 to find you, moil ami? I knew not, and so waited here.” “A sure gamble,” approved O’Rourke looking out upon the ever-changing, kaleidoscopic pageant upon the sidewalks, where, it seemed, all Paris was promenading itself. “If one sits here long enough,” explained the Irishman, “sure lie’ll see every one in the wide world that’s worth the seeing—as a better man than I said long ago.” “It is so,’ agreed Chambret. He summoned a. waiter for O’Rourke’s order; and that important duty attended to, turned to find the Irishman’s eyes fixed upon him soberly, the while lie caressed his clean, firm chin. Chambret (returned the other’s regard, with interest; smilingly they considered one another. Knowing each other well, these two had little need for evasiveness of word or deed; there will be slight constraint between men who have, as had Chambret «*d O’Rourke, fought back'to back, shoulder to shoulder, and—for the matter of that—face to face. The Frenchman voiced the common conclusion. “Unchanged, I see,” said he, with a light laugh.

OUR-SERIAL-STORY

(13y LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE.)

* PART SECOND. - 3$

THE LONG TRAIL

“Unchanged—even as yourself, Chambret.” | “The same wild Irishman?” ! “Faith,. 3’es!” returned O’Rourke. ‘ He continued to smile, but there was in his tone a . note of bitterness—an echo of liis tliaoughts which were darksome enough. “The same!” he told himself. “Ay—there’s truth for ye, O’Rourke! —the same wild Irishman, the same improvident ne’er-do-well, good for naught in all the world but a fight—and growing rusty, like an old sword, for want of exercise!” “And ye, mon ami?” he asked aloud. “How wags the world with yq?” “As ever—indifferently well. I am fortunate in a way.” “Ye may well say that!” Was there envy in the man’s tone, or discontent? Chambret remarked the undernote, and was quick to divine what had evoked it. . He had a. comprehending eye that had not been slow to note the contrast between them. Foi it was great; Chambret, the sleek, faultlessly groomed gentleman of Paris, contented in his knowledge of an assured income from rentes; O’Rourke, ( light of heart, but lean from a precarious living, at ease and courteous, but shabby, with a threadbare collar to his carefully brushed coat, and a roughly trimmed fringe, sawlike, edging his spotless cuff. “You are—what do you say—hard up?” queried Chambret bluntly. ■O’Rourke caught ■ his eye, with a glimmering of humourous deprecation. What need to ask? he seemed to say. Gravely lie inspected the end of the commendable panetela, which he was. enjoying by the grace of Chambret; and ho puffed from it furiously; twinkling upon his friend through a pillar of smoke. “’Tis nothing new, at all, at all,” he sighed. Chambret frowned. “How long?” he demanded. “Why have you not called upon me, mon ami, if you were in need ?” “Sure, ’twas nothing as bad as that. I—l am worrying along. There’ll be a Avar soon, I’m hoping, and then the world Avail remember O’Rourke.” “Who will give v the world additional cause to remember him,” said Chambret, in the accents of firm conviction. “But why?” lie- cried abruptly, changing to puzzled protest. “Mon ami, you are an-incomprehensible. If you vvould, you might be living the life of ease, husband to one of the richest and most charming women in France; Beatrix, Princesse “Sssli!” O’Rourke warned him. “Ah, monsieur, but 1 am desolated to have hurt you! ’ ’ said Chambret contritely; for he had at once recognised the pain that sprang to new life in the Irishman’s eyes. “No matter at all, Chambret. Sure, ’tis always with me.” O’Rourke laughed, but hollowly. “’Tis not in the O’Rourke to be forgetting her highness—nor do I wish to, to lie frank vv r id. ye. Faith. . . . He forgot to finish

liis thought and lapsed into a dreamy silence, staring into the smoke rings. His face was turned away for the moment, hut one fancied that he saw again the eyes of Madame la Princesse.

“But why, then ” persisted Cliambret.

“Have ye not stated it, yourself—the reason why the thing’s impossible, me friend? The wealthiest woman in all France, since the death of that poor fool, her brother ! Is she to be mating with a penniless Irish adventurer, a —a fortune-hunter?’ Faith, then, ’twill not be with the O’Rourke that she does it?” “But I thought ” C’hambret persisted. “That I loved her? Faith, ye were right, there, old friend. ’Tis me life I’d be giving for her sweet sake, any time at all ’tis necessary—or convenient.” He chuckled softly, then shook his head with decision. “No more,” he said: “’tis over and done with—me dream vanished. Please God, ’tis the O’Rourke here who will be going back to her some one of these fine mornings, with a pocketful of money and a heart that. ... if she’ll wait so long, which I misdoubt. ’Tis not in woman’s nature to live loveless, though Heaven for fend that I should breathe a whisper against her faith and constancy.” He glared at Chambret wratlifully, as though he suspected that gentleman of having subtly aspersed those qualities in the woman he loved; then softened. “Have ye news of her?” “No word,” replied Chambret. “You know that she retired to the Principality of Grandlieu, after little Leopold’s death? She was reported to have left for a tour of Europe, shortly afterwards, but I am certain that she did not come to Paris. Indeed, i,t is uncertain where she may be.” “She is her own mistress,” said O’Rourke, doggedly thoughtful. “She is adorable, mon ami,” sighed Chambret. “I have good cause to remember how charming she is.” He grimaced and tapped O’Rourke on the shoulder nearest him. “Eh, mon sieurr*’ he asked meaningly. i I O’Rourke smiled. “Faith!” he de- ' dared. “I had almost forgotten that hole ye put in me, when we settled our little differences, ye fire-eater.” “I have not forgotten, my friend,” returned Chambret seriously. “Nor shall I ever forget your gallantry. To have fired in the air, as you did, after having been wounded by your antagonist ” “Hush! Not another word will I listen to! Wouid ve have me shoot down a man J. love as a brother? What d’ye think ” “Ah, monsieur, but it was a gallant deed!. . . I’ll'say no more, if you insist, mon Colonel. But Madame la Princesse? You have heard from het yourself?” “Not a line,” said O’Rourke gloomily. “Not that I had any right to expect,. so much,” lie defended his beloved instantly. “But ’twas in our agreement that, if she needed me, she was to send for me. .1 mind. . . ” He broke off suddenly and sat staring moodily into the uncurling spirals of cigar smoke. Chambret forbore to , disturb him. Presently O’Rourke took I up the thread of his thoughts aloud, j “I mind the night I left ye all,” he said. “’Twas while, the Eirene still lay at Marseilles—the ‘ day afther ye had drilled I 'this hole in me. . We were standing in the bows, madame and I, looking at the moonlight painting a path across -the sea to-Algiers. . .

Faith! she was that lovely I clean forgot myself. Before I knew what I was about, I had been speaking the matter of ten minutes, and she knew it all. And there was no one at all to see, so she was in me arms. . . Faith! 1 dunno why I am telling ye all this.” “Continue, my friend. If you had told her of your love, why, then, did _ you go—as I remember you went—that very night?” I . : < “’Twas me pride—not alone for meself, but for her! Who was Ito be making love to the sweetest woman in the wide world?. . : Anyway, ’twas then it was decided upon betwixt herself and me.” “What was ?” “That I was to go forth and seek me me fortune and come back to claim her 1 when I could do so without hurting her in the eyes of the world. I had a gold sovereign in me pocket, and I took it. out and broke it with me two hands ■and gave her the half of it. . . She kissed the other half and I put it away . to remember her by. . . She was to send it me when she needed me. . . And then I was making so bold as to kiss her hand, but she would not let me. ~ . And I left her there and dropped down over the side, with all the world reeling and no thought at all in me but of her white, sweet face in the moonlight, and the touch of her lips upon me own!. . . Two months later I was in India seeking me fortune. And I’m still doing that.” (To be continued).