HIS FATHER'S SON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4575, 21 February 1893, Page 1

HIS FATHER'S SON.

(Concluded.) Time had proved his passion for the fair Sylvia to be something a great deal more serions than a mere passing fancy. Every time lie had met her, as he had done with all due precautions, i he had found himself more and more in love with her. It goes without saying that this would nob have been the case with a really honourable and high-minded young fellow such as he was, if he had not been satisfied by sufficient inquiry that her antecedents, though comparatively humble, were aa irreproachable as her own personal character. In a word, he had come to tho unalterable conviction that in her bo had met his fate, and that she was the one woman with whom he could reasonably hope to live happily. Ofl courao there was a terrible scene, but it was- entirely in vain that he sought to discover tho real reason for his father's almost fanatical objection to anyone connected with the stage. As has occurred before, and will probably often occur again in such cases, father and son both remained immovable in their respective resolutions, and the result of a heated interview was the departure of the son and heir the next morning with his personal effects, and about a couple of hundred pounds left out of a recently paid instalment of his allowance, for tho good city of Manchester, where Miss Sylvia Leytjn was playing in a comedy burlesque at the Prince of TTalea Theatre. Youthful love, us usual, set all considerations , of worldly prudence at defiance, and Sylvia yielded to his solicitations and became Viscountess Louthmere with nothing more to support the dignity than her own salary of £12 a week and the remains of her husband's £200. This, however, would have been quite suffioienttohave enabled the young couple to have, got on very comfortably until Francis had carried out a cherished and perhaps a too much trusted plan of getting an appointment through the interest of Irs friends, had it not been for a very unfortunate difference that his wife had with the managei of the company in which she was playing. Thia gentleman, with the astuteness of his kind, saw the moment thatheleorntlof her marriage that the faot of his having a Viscountess among his company would enormously add to its general attractiveness. Consequently, he promptly offered to give her a leading part and raise her salary to £20 a week if eho would act under her own married name and title instead of continuing to do so under her maiden name. This offer Sylvia and her husband naturally declined with perfect unanimity, and the result was that the manager lost hia temper and Sylvia . losthor place on the expiration of her engagement. By living as carefully as possible on their existing resources, they managed to got along " pretty comfortably until another heir presumptive to the earldom of St Simon came into the world. But a few months after this event saw them almost face to face with poverty. Their pride hold out almost to the bitter end, and then Francis wrote to bis father. The letter came back torn across the middle, without a word of answer, and the young father and mother were finally, if rudely, convinced that the struggle with poverty was about to begin in bitter earnest. ' Francis had found that those of his former friends who were in a position to be of service to him looked with different eyes upon the young man who had got disinherited for an unpardon- • able indiscretion to those with which they had regarded the heir to an* earldom and a double fortune. They promised readily enough, but the performance never came; and ao, after many trials and failures, Sylvia's husband found himself numbered among the mournful ranks of the genteel unemployed. Then he lost heart, but Sylvia was made of sterner stuff, and after muoh discussion between them she persuaded him to let her make an effort to get back upon the boards under an alias. After several failures, and when the'wolf was almost at the door, she succeeded in getting ; a minor part in a burlesque at the Piccadilly. ' She threw herself heart and soul into the rehearsals, determined to recover her old skill and charm as rapidly as possible, and so well did she succeed that by sheer force of talent she lifted her part so far above its natural level that she at once made it one of the features of the piece. The same grace and vivacity that had charmed the audiences of the Frivolity won all hearts at ' ' ■ the Piccadilly, and within a week she was one of the sensations of tho season. In a month or so a Btrpke of luck gave her one of the leading ,:! -parts,.'and from a sensation. Bhe became thfr '' rag B-.:- -', '''' .'.'' ' ■-. i-' .- • .. - '. Naturally all thia did not happen unaccompanied by the usual temptations that idle wealth is wont to cast in the way of those who succeed aa she had done. But it goes without saying that all these were put aside with a quiet disdain that gave her husband as little cause for jealousy as it gave her many admirers reason to hope for ■; success. ' Frank met her every night at the stage-door, and took her home, and the course of wedded true love ran as smoothly aa the most exacting of ' hasbands could have desired, until one night there fell a bolt from the blue that shattered his illusions »and his happiness at a single blow. ■ It so happened that on the fatal night in question he was nearly a quarter of an hour late in the stage-door, and on asking for hia wife he was horrified by being told by the doorkeeper, with a very clumsily concealed smile, that Miss Forrester, aa she was known at the theatre, had left about ten minutes before in a private brougham in company with "an eldorly and very aristocratic-looking gent," of whom the man could .toll him nothing save the fact that his name was Colonel Vincent, aud that for.two or three nights past he had occupied one of the private boxes, and bad regularly sent an extremely handsome bouquet behind the soanea to Miss Forrester. He had heard no directions given to the driver, and consequently it was impossible for the distracted Frank to obtain the slightest clue aa to the present whoreabouts of bis vanished wife. To attempt to describe the state of mind into which this information threw him would be to attempt the impossible. If any woman had told him that hia wife would ' have done such a thing he would have called her a liar to her face, and if any man had done so he would have knocked him down, and yet here was proof clear and unmistakable that those who had told Mm ao would have spoken the truth. To attempt to look for her would have been an absurdity, and so in the bitter agony and perplexity of his soul he turned away from the stagedoor, and for a goad two hours walked the streets, : alternately striving with all his might to find some •tolerable explanation of Ilia wife* conduct, and roviling her and all other women as heartless deceivers and wreckers cf man's happiness. Possibly he would never have gone home at all had not at length the recollection of hia baby boy come to him and brought him to a sanor frame .of mind. Then he stopped bis aimless wanderings and went home to find hia wife seated by the fire witb the said baby boy in hor arms. Of course, there was a scene, but to Frank's amazement and disgust all the making of it was on his port. Sylvia simply sat still and heard him out and then in the coolest fashion possible reproached him for what she was pleased to call hia foolish jealouiy and unkind distrust of her. The only effeot of this was to draw afresh string of inveitiye? from her husband, who so far forgot ; In lifo exasperation that ho at last put he*.

on her dignity, and, after ringing for the nurse and having the baby token away, she quietly faced him and told him that whether ho believed it or not, she was perfectly able to take care of herself, and if she choose to make appointments with her friends she should certainly do so. Then telling him to go to bed and get his head cool enough to make her a suitable apology in the morning, she left the room and went upstairs to the nursery, .and was not Been again that night. How Frank passed the night himself he scarcely know, but as soon as it was daylight he got up and went out, and purposely did not return until he knew his wife would have gone to the theatre. Then he went back to put on his dressclothes with the intention of going to the theatre himself, and running his wife and the man he believed to be her lover to earth at all hazard after the performance. When he reached his room he found lying on his dressing-table a note adressed to him in hia wife's handwriting. He tore it open, and read : "My Dear Frank,— "If you had not so far forgotten yourself last night aa to behave with such unreasonable violence, the little myßtery which now puzzles you would have been cleared up. As it was, you forgot yourself so far, and offended me so grossly, that by way of punishment I have decided to prolong the agony a little longer. "If you are thinking of coming to the theatre to-night, take my advice and don't do so, unless yon wish to make yourself look very absurd and me something worse. Still, if you will take my advice you shall not be kept in suspense any longer than to-night., " Keep away from the theatre, and go at halfpast eleven to the Cafe de Luxe and ask to be shown to Colonel Vincent's room. There the solution of the mystery, which I solemnly assure you is a perfectly innocent one, will await you. "Ever your true and loving wife, " Sxivia." Frank did not go to the theatre. Ho knew his wife well enough to be convinced that, whatever the mystery might be, nothing but trouble and possibly disgrace, could arise from his thwarting her wishes in thia respect. Consequently he contained himself aa well as he could till the time appointed, and punctually at half-past eleven presented himself at the Cafe de Luxe, and, giving hia card to the head waiter, asked to be shown to Colonel Vincent's room. Ho was evidently expected, for that functionary immediately called another waiter, behind whom he ascended the stairs with beating heart and clenched hands to the door of one of the private rooms on the first floor of the establishment. Before the waiter had time to knock he pushed him aside, opened the door without knocking, and itrode into the room, to find his wife sitting quietly at supper face to face with— his own father! For a good minute the two men glared at eaoh other in speechless astonishment. It would be difficult to aay which of their faces betrayed the greatest discomfiture. Just as the storm was about to burst forth, Sylvia got up from the table, went to her husband, and said, in the calmest;, fashion possible : I " Frank, dear,, allow me to introduce you to Colonel Vincent, whom you probably know better as Lord St Simon." As the last words left her lips, his lordship jumped up, and was inquiring, in language [more forcible than polite how she came to know his name, when Sylvia told him not to make matters worse by losing his temper, but to listen quietly to what she had to say, and this she said as follows :•■■*'■ ' ' "In some respects it's a pity, and in others a very good thing, that your lordship has not even yet overcome all the weaknesses of your youth. "It is well to be a respectable member of Society in the country, but something quite different to come up to town and make appointments with aotresses, and I hope this will be a warning to you to mend your ways. "I recognised you the first time you tried to make my aquaintance, because Frank pointed you but to mo one day last year in fiegent street ; and the idea of according you the honour that you sought, with ft view; to a necessary explanation at once occurred to me. " I suppose your lordship ( has not yet forgotten a humble actress named Jenny Smithera, who once had the honour of being your lordship's sister-in-law. Now in addition to being Frank's wife and your daughter-in-law, I am also your nieoe' by marriage, because I am ' Jenny's daughter. "If Frank has done wrong in marrying an actress, he has still done better than you did for ho has .managed to live happily with her, and when he.cornea to be your age I don't think it very likely that he'll ever be found in such a position; as you- are now. Now don't you think the best thing you can do is . to shake hands,: and let bygonoe be bygones." ' Obviously there was nothing else to do; and by tho time the three had finished supper, it was fully decided under what circumstances the Viscountess Louthmeco should for the second time retire from the stage.