LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5057, 17 September 1894, Page 1

LITERATURE.

A WOMAN'S HISTORY.

"When I see her paBB in her carriage in the park, wrapped in her furs, opulent, haughty, oold, invulnerable, beautiful, the woman's history cornea back to me ever and again, point for point, step for stepAmid all the hidden life-stories of tho great city, none perhaps is more strange, more daring than hers. She is not as young as Bhe was ten years ago. But who would know it did he not reokon wilfully the flight of time as it passes P Her brow has the same marble smoothsees.; her shoulders, when she sits in the blaze of light of her opera-box, diamonds that -would grace a queen shimmering on their whiteness, are as incomparable as ever they were : a saint, shut within the peace of convent walls would have retained no more of the young, firm, innocent parity of contour than this woman's face. Time and again her calm, inscmtable eyes meet, with a fleeting glance, her husband's. They quietly, undemonstratively despise each other, these two. Bnt again, who would know it ? Millionaire princes like Hammond and his wife are not expected to care greatly for the fireside joys. Thus it astonishes no one that both go their several ways. As for Hammond, he does not wear as well as the beantifnl Adrienne. Higb living, clubs, race horses, yachts, too much stimulants are telling on him. Yet once, before hie face took en that shadow of bloatedness, hia neck that bovine charaoter, he was handsome enough. * • * * # But that wbb ten years ago. The outward circumstances were different then. On a moist, foggy afternoon in January, a young man with a keen, set, determined countenance, and eyes brooding, calculating, summing-up, combining as he went rapidly along the crowded city streets, was accosted byanother man of about the sime age, whowas hastening, though somewhat more leisurely, in the oppoßite direction. "Hullo, Hammond!" Hammond half-wheeled round and stopped.^ "If you've nothing else on hand, come and make that call with me, to-night," said Searle. ' ' Hammond was conscious of no epeoial eagernesß. But Searle was a rather good friend of his—the beßt he had. That was, perhaps, not saying mnch, for Hammond's friends were few. He had come from the country one day, resolute upon making his way. How he lived he best bimself knew for a few years. Then he began to come up gradually. He had a genius for speculation, bnt he had his ups ahd downs. There were times when the struggle was fought at snch close quarters that his landlady's bills remained unpaid. But at the darkest the dogged determination in him never faltered. He used now and then to walk up the fashionable streets at night and loiter a moment, lost in the crowd of street Arabs of small and large growth, at the hoose of a well-known prince of finance, over whose front steps an awning extended to the ourb. The noiselessly opening and shutting door at the head of the steps gave glimpses of an interior of light and warmth. To the curb there drove np a long, slowly-moving maBB Of liveried carriages disgorging their contents on the carpeted way. Hammond would stand there an instant or two, observant of the scene. -.' "Someday," a voice within him would cay, "I BhaU open my doors in thia fashion, or drive up to this very door as these people do now. Searle was' but insufficiently cognisant of these characteristics of his friend. He liked him, did him a good turn when he could, and unbosomed himself to him as the more prosperous man will occasionally do to the confidant whose fortunes are not so excellent as his own. The excellence of Searle's fortunes was a matter of relative estimates. Searle himself felt that he was as lucky as any man need wish to be. Hammond, had he been asked to give his opinion, would have remarked that to be the manager of a big bank, on a ' salary of a thousand a year, waa a beggarly sort of thing, unless a man expected to get np higher. Here lay the difference between the two men. Searle supposed he might get up higher some day, but he did not think much about it. Hammond thought of nothing else.

The call the friends made together that evening was on a young girl and her mother. The mother came second. Searle had been infatuated forborne time. Now they were engaged. The young lady could scarcely ba said to be in society ; andßhe was in modeßt circumstancee. Bat Searle was bo happy that he eagerly wished everyone o£ his friends to ccc Miss Eastlake and appreciate hia good fortune. Did Hammond think her sufficiently handsome ? Searle, with masculine fatuity, asked himself the question several times in the course of the evening. Hammond' <j face was under all circumstances noncommittal. Butjj on the other hand, not to acknowledge the beauty of Adrienae Eastlake was impossible. Hammond, pleading another appointment:, left early. Searle lingered behind for a few moments. •" What do you thiDk of Hammond ?" he 4sked, looking down at the girl as she Bat ■before him in a low&hair, her head thrown iback. . " I have only seen him once," she said ■evasively. Her manner ito the man she was going to marry was cool, calm, elusive. But, unconsciously, blinded by his own •engrorsing passion, Searle invested it with a reflected fervour. •"Ob, Hammond is bound to get on some <iay. list mo tell yon about him. 0 ' And tiearle discoursed for some minuteß, to which Adrienne listened daoguidly. "Sad! " he cried, with a sndden laugh. —"if he had only a first rate opening ebaace— jnsfc the initial jfiIQ,OOO, let us aayi Something like the chance one or two (fellows I know womld have if they wero aware of a certain inaade facb I could communicate to them ! " Searle wa3 rather a weaik mm, and a somewhat indiscreet one. When Adrienne, with a new show of ' interest, aß&ed what waa the inside fact, he was not proof against the flattery of her f reskly-hestowed attention. " Simply the fact that our ban*—— — " Then he stopped short. "Look here/* he laughed uneasily, "I ought not Co be telling you this ! It only shows whit confidence I have in you, tow I worship you 1 • Heaven! I believe better than any girl was worshipped before." She had laid her cheek against hip -shoulder. Her caresses at all times had .been few. Thia one fired hia blood. - "Tell me " He had still presence of mind to ask : ; " But why do yoa want to know ? " " Simply a feminine *«riosity ! If you doo'fs tell me, I shall know you don't; love »*" And Searle told her, # * « * * The followiag morning a slight, girlish figure, KJth a certain majesty, too, despite it) gklishnes?, was admitted to toe small office where Hammond was eagerly serening jsome pipew. The lady 'jb face was ve'led. When efa» asfc&d if she might see him alona on important; bußin^SP, Hammond, with a faintly

inner room. Then Bhe removed her veil. "Miss Eastlake!" „ "Yes. You are surprised, of course. Yet a man such aB I take you to be Bhould . be surprised at nothing. As a preamble to what I came here to say, however, I am going to tell you that if you do not know me I know you, far better than you think possible. Don't misunderstand me." The girl had seated herself. She spoke in a quiet collected, level voice. "I am not in love with you. But, from the things Oscar Searle haa let drop inadvertently about you from time to time, Ihave formed a certain idea of your personality. And that personality interested me because it coincided with my own, with my own temper, with my own mode of thought. As soon as I heard you speak last night— l had seen you before and studied ycur face, for Mr Searle pointed you out to me on more than one occasion— l saw that I had not been mistaken in this view I had conceived of the manner of man you were. Well, this being so, I have come to make a bargain. I think it quite to your advantage, I shall Btate it as briefly as possible. Few wordß are needed." She paused, and her magnificent eyes were fixed ' upon him with a piercing keenness in place of their customary nonchalance. Hammond had listened with growing attentiveness. What sort of a woman was this P In appearance, a lovely girl, whom he regarded as such the night before, and in no other way. In speeoh and manner, at this moment, definite, trenchant, seeming to command an invisible situation by right of Borne enormous, inherent, unsuspected force of character. " Go on," he said. She continued to look at him steadily with a glance . tbat never wavered or flickered or sank. Then she.spoke. " I can give you information— inside in* formation— concerning the shares- in a large bank, which, if you have the daring finanoial spirit I take you to have, will make your fortune or launch you on the way to permanent and colossal success." Hammond raised his eyebrows. "Ah!— Searle P" "Exaotly, Searle. He told me— being infatuated with me, and thinking a woman could make use of no suoh disclosure. He ough^r not to have trusted to that, of course. But Mr Searle is a fool. You thought I loved him ! " . She shrugged her shoulders. " I consented to marry him, because hia position was, at least, hot poverty— genteel poverty— fche worst of all. But I want to be rich, I want to be powerful. I want to see the world at my feet. "Possibly, I think, probably, you are the man who could do these things. Therefore, my bargain. I communicate Mr Searle's information— which he was a fool to give— on consideration that yon . marry me." . The two faced each other a moment. Hammond's brain was working with lightning rapidity. "Of course, Searle may be suspected. He will lose his position. This will brand him— ruin his chances for ever." Again Adrienne Eastlake shrugged her shoulders. ' "I am sorry; I would not willingly harm him. But in the struggle for life the weak go to the wall. It is the law.' Half an hour longer this man and -this woman were closeted. When Hammond walked with his vi.itor to the door, tbe information had been given, the bargain .■truck. Before him Hammond's insatiate inner eye saw stretching the feverish vision of Buccess,_ no . longer afar off and dimly uncertain, but near, but close, but within the grasp' of his hand. Yet, in all the exultation of that moment, a' thought bringing with it a smile of confirmed cynicism shot through ' his mind. Who was it had said that a woman, once given over to the luxury of this world, could be more unscrupulous than any man ? * # * * ■ #.• Se_r le* to-day is a poor man. For ten years past he has been an unsuccessful one. That tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, led Hammond and his beautiful wife on to fortune, has left him stranded. Ho lost his position in bad odour. : The saline unwelcome repute has hung about his name ever since. But Hammond bulls and bears the market. And Adrienne has attained her (nds; enjoys the fullest fruition of her ambition. To the. general world Bhe represents triumph incarnate, securo. The few who know see her drive by, as I do, with wonder and a question as to the possible final end of an earthly triumph.