IF TO-DAY BE SWEET

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17880, 23 June 1926, Page 16

IF TO-DAY BE SWEET

' STAR’S ” NEW SERIAL

By

DOROTHY ROGERS.

CHAPTER IV—(Continued.) \\ hen Gentian first observed them, the golden-haired girl was bending side'vaj'S towards Paul, tilting her face and laughing with a captivating little air ol raillery. She put exit a white arm and dipped sparkling fingers into a large box qf chocolates which lay on the ledge of the box, extracting one which she put into Paul’s mouth. He looked at her under his lashes and said something at which she laughed again. Hinging herself easily and gracefully back in her chair, bending forward once more a moment later to lean both elbows on the ledge and, chin in hand, to gaze downwards at the occupants of the stalls. Now and then she turned her head to address a remark to Paul, when the great fan-like osprey swept its delicate black cloud across her bare white shoulder; He appeared to be taking no extraordinary' amount of interest in her and none whatever in the audience. Gentian, who was very undesirous of a recognition, need have had no fear, for never once did he glance in the direction of their party but seemed, as indeed he was, entirely unconscious of their presence in the theatre. Once during the next act Gentian looked up at the box, but in the cavern of darkness she could only faintly see the glimmering face of the ■ girl and a momentary sparkle as some part of her head ornament caught a ray of light from the stage. In tlie next interval she looked up again. It seemed as though her eyes were drawn against her own will towards the box. The girl was leaning back, her scarlet lips serious and almost pouting as she made some remark. Paul was also leaning back and looking at her from under his lowered litis somewhat indifferently, Gentian thought. The girl picked up her long ostrich plume fan and half-caressingly, half-mischievousl}', swept it across his face. At that moment Mrs Hewling, following ths direction of Gentian’s gaze, recognised Paul and gave a little exclamation. “ Oh, Derek, there is Paul Farrant.. In that box. Do you see him? I wonder whom he is with? Did }*ou see him, Gentian?” Derek Hewling looked up. widening and narrowing his lids distressfully, but was unable to see so far. His mother remarked on the fact in a rather aggrieved tone: “Oh, Derek! And you used to be so long-sighted ! I know it is because you are always poring over those wretched cuneiform inscriptions and things. You are getting quite blind ! ” Hewling looked down at his mother with a faint indulgent smile. He made no reply, but afterwards, staring absently at the bald head of a man in front of him. his face clouded into a look of brooding sadness. Gentian, for some inexplicable reason, felt slightly irritated at having inadvertently drawn Mrs Hewling’s at tention to Paul, a feeling which was not lessened by that lady’s flood of inconsequent comment. “ I wonder who she is? ' Sure to. be somebody we shouldn't care to know! I am afraid he is a very naughty man ! It is a pity he is so fascinating.” Mrs Hewling sighed. “I often wonder exactly what it is that makes him so attractive. We all know how dreadfully naughty he is, but that isn’t quite the reason,” She asserted naively. “ because I have known quite good women—you know what I mean—like the dear old Miss Tebbs, who have known all about his life and yet are ever so fond of him! You like him, too, don’t you. Gentian?” The girl's reply was quickly decisive at first and then slower, as if more doubtful. “ No. I don't think I do. No—l don’t think I do.” There was a faint reflective pause between each sentence. For the rest of the evening she refused even to glance at the couple in the box; nevertheless, she was destined to see them once more that night. As she and Hewling and his mother were gradually working their wav through the laughing, chattering, surging crowd that filled the entrance of the theatre, apparently making very little effort to move out, a wave of pervasive fragrance seemed to envelop her and she turned to see Paul and the golden haired girl going through the doors immediately before them. The girl was wrapped in a lovely cloak of white and silver brocade with a white fur collar that melted into the great black cloud of ospre}' behind her head. She was talking in high-pitched and somewhat affected tones. Paul, the large box of chocolates tucked under his elbow, was holding her arm familiarly through the cloak as he guided her among the press of people. As Gentian, in her turn, emerged from the doorway, she saw the gleaming cloak just disappearing into a car, closely followed by Paul Farrant. The door slammed, and with a crescendo whirr the car moved away into the roaring stream of traffic. CHAPTER V. “ Then . . . you mean .... there is no hope . . . whatever?” “ I am afraid it would only be unfair t.o you' to tell you otherwise.” The great oculist spoke very gravely and deliberately. There was a troubled look on his grave keen face as he watched his patient intently. “ However, if you prefer to have a second opinion ? ." Ho paused. Derek Hewling shook his head. For a moment or two he remained absolutely still, his gaze fixed upon a small patch of mud that lay on the carpet. Throughout the rest of his life he could never dissociate from his memory of this fateful consultation that patch of mud on the rich blues and crimsons of the Turkey carpet. He stared at it abstractedly. Someone must have come in without rubbing their shoes, he reflected dully. Then suddenly his mind switched back and he looked tip swiftly, surprising a look of pitiful kindliness in the face of the. other man. He rose abruptly. “ Then—l have to face it, that’s all,” he said.

His tone was., almost matter-of-fact, onh- a slight-quiver of his nostrils betraying the curb he was imposing on himself. He smiled verv faintly and bitterly. I suppose you become quite used to pronouncing sentence of deathliving death—upon people,” he said. “ f never become used to it,” said the eminent man gravely; there was in his voice a hint of the strain which no amount of custom could conquer. Derek Hewling was quick to notice it. Again he made a gigantic effort to curb his feelings. An innate, self-contained reserve that had been his since earliest childhood now came to his aid. “No,” he replied quietly, ‘‘l don’t suppose it can be very pleasant for you, either.” His voice sounded strangely unconcerned in his own ears. He felt rather as though he were an outsider, a third person, at this interview, listening to the fatal report on some other man. Absurdly, he found himself ahrtost looking round for the other man, to see how he was taking the blow. He noticed details in the room, swiftly, as though he had just entered it. The furniture had a large prosperous air, almost pompous, in fact. And someone had arranged an enormous jar of tall bronze ehrj r santhemums. A woman. . . . lie made a small irritable gesture. “ I must not take up }*our time further.” he said, laying the fee on the broad knee-hole desk. The oculist acknowledged it with a courteous mo\ r ement of his head. lie understood only too well the stunned torpor of Derek Hewling's brain, and hoped profoundly that it might not awaken to realisation until he was with someone of his own .who would stand by him in that hour. Mechanically Hewling extended his hand. His brown eyes, with their dark dilated pupils, stared into the other man’s face. Its troubled gravity aroused his enduring pride. “ After all, there are worse things than blindness,” he said and went quickly out of the room. Words! He felt that the}' were only words; that neither he nor the other man believed them. Still, the}' helped him to make a 1 respectable exit, as it were. Once more he smiled a little bitterly as the door closed behind him. The decorous manservant, who showed him out after the long consultation, noticed how mechanically he walked along the quiet hall and down the steps from the front door. He seemed like one so utterly absorbed in his own thoughts as to be oblivious to all his surroundings. As a matter of fact, for the time being, his mind was an empty echoing corridor down which with ceaseless reiteration knelled that one word—blindness! On this afternoon of their last day in London he had ratified the promise he had made to Gentian by going to consult the oculist. He had done so with great reluctance because, although at various times he had had his sight tested, he had never entered the con-sulting-room without apprehension nor, until this visit, left it without a sense of dread having been lifted from his spirit. He had always been told that, although weak, his sight was perfectly healthy; it was merely a question of getting glasses to suit his eyes and guarding against undue strain. Certainly the weakness of his eves had for some time prevented his joining the Arm3' during the war, but that had only' been in the early days when those in authority could afford to pick and choose, and men were rejected for more or less trifling defects. Later on he had passed even the sight test and once launched into the Army had paid less attention to his defective vision than he had ever done before, particularly as being then somewhat long-sighted he had occasionally found it an advantage. It was onl>’ after serious wounds in the head and body had caused him to be invalided out of the Service that his eyes began gravely to trouble him. At first he put down the intense headaches to the head-wound he had received, and so apparently had the oculist he had then consulted. But as time went on and these headaches increased and his sight became more and more indistinct and troublesome, he felt the old curious dread come tipon him whenever he thought of again seeing a specialist, so had always postponed the visit until “ next time he was in town.” Moreover, deep in the stud}* of ancient Assyrian histor}', so long interrupted by the years of war, he feared lest he should be emphatically ordered to give up all reading and research for a while, and this would have brought his beloved book entirel} r to a standstill. Much as he instinctively' feared to lose his sight, for the time being the completion of his book outweighed everything else. Thus it was that he had gone to keep his appointment with very mixed feelings of apprehension that he had tried to stifle with the remembrance of other occasions on which he had again come forth infinitely relieved. But this time the blow had fallen. At first he walked heedlessly down the street, his eyes gazing blankly straight ahead, an almost, puzzled expression on his face. Now that the instinctive dread of a lifetime had’ been confirmed his brain failed to grasp the full significance of what he had been told; he only knew that some terrible thing was hovering just beyond the reach of his mind. Gradually, however, realisation came, and with it a passionate desire to keep on walking, walking anywhere rather than' to return to the hotel just then and face his mother and Gentian. This meant the end of all things; of his life’s study, of his book, of the whole of his future. He drew a sudden sharp breath and stopped abruptly in the middle of the pavement. This meant the end of his marriage, too. He could not ask Gentian to tie herself to a blind man. That thought, however, was more than -he could endure to face as yet. With a violent effort he shook it temporarily from his"- - mind, and resumed his mechanical walk. (To be Continued.)