" STAR S " NEW SERIAL. IF TO-DAY BE SWEET

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17905, 22 July 1926, Page 16

" STAR S " NEW SERIAL. IF TO-DAY BE SWEET

By

DOROTHY ROGERS.

CIIAPTE R XVIII.— (Continued.) During this recital which, from the quick, sensitive glances he kept throwing at the girl, had more the semblance of a confession, Gentian sat somewhat rigidly. There was a hint of disappointment and hardness behind the blue eyes that gazed unseeingly at a great bowl of nasturtiums, gorgeous in autumnal flame and orange and dark velvety crimson, which glowed on the Side window ledge. As Paul ceased speaking, however, she looked at him and the shamed childish glance of penitence he cast at her .softened her heart immediately. Of what use was it to be angry or disgusted with this man? It was long since she had discovered that, side by side with his inability to strengthen himself against the moments temptations, there arose always a ready ana sincere sorrow, not for his wrongdoing, but for the fact that by it he had given pain. She fully realised that there was no callous indifference in Paul s nature. The indifference he often displayed was purely that of absolute heedlessness, an apparent inability to see things from a normal and moral standpoint. Reminding herself of these vagaries of his character, she answered slowly and simply. “ I'm sorry for that, Paul.” “So am I, Gentian. I am, truly,” he said, eagerness mingling with the regret in his tones, as in a child wh o, behind the reproof, senses the coming forgiveness. “ That’s why I didn't stay the second night. I thought about you when I was getting up yesterday morning. and I knew you wouldn’t like it. 1 hat’s why I’ve told you,” he explained naively. Gentian’s face expressed a momentary surprise, then, /irresistibly, she laughed. Quite unconscious of the manner of his explanation, Paul laughed, too, with visible relief. He had felt it a sort of duty to confess his delinquency to Gentian; the thought of it had somewhat over-shadowed him; now that he had got it off his mind and she had laughed, he considered that it was time to fling the memory from him and turn to more comfortable topics. He began to tell her of the men he had met; “Old Freddie this” and “old Blinkers that,” with scraps of anecdote about each. But all the time Gentian only gave him half her attention. The noticeably leaden hue of his complexion. the deepened lines and heavier puffs beneath his eyes, and a sagging at the corners of his mouth, all pointed to some graver cause than just one right’s bard drinking. With renewed forceful insistence there came into her mind things which, since her engagement to Paul, she had hitherto firmly expelled and kept at bay; things that people had said about his. drinking; suggestions, even, of drug-taking. How could she find out the truth or falsehood of these suggestions? She had no father or brother to help her. And she felt an imperative necessity to know, if only that she might apprehend exactly what she had to face and combat.

Paul unwittingly gave her the opportunity she required. Realising that her attention was elsewhere, he checked his casual flow of gossip and reminiscence and got up, prodding his cigarette into an ash tray. Crossing to her side, he perched himself on the arm of her chair, at the same time slipping his arm round her shoulders. Ts anything up, dearest? ” he inquired. “X-no; why should there be?” she answered, somewhat taken bt' surprise. Yet, realising that this was not essentially truthful, she did not look at him. Still pondering how to express her question, she had not been prepared for his. However. Paul's sensitive intuition once roused, he was not to be put off by any evasion. Like a child who wishes to enforce the attention of an elder, with one hand he gently turned her face until her eyes met his own. "What is worrying you, girlie?” he persisted quietly. After all. Gentian felt, this was her opportunity. She summoned her courage. "I am a little worried over you. Paul. You don't look a bit fit," she said. “Who? I? Oh, bless your heart, that’s nothing. That old beano we had ” “No,” she interrupted, "it isn’t only that. You have been looking poorly for some little time. Paul, can’t you account for it? Do you sleep properly now ? ” He had once told her of his habitual insomnia. “Yes, doctor,” he answered solemnly. "Appetite moderate. Temperature not higher than 119 degrees. Would you like to see my tongue?” “No, Paul, don’t make fun of me; I am very serious.” Gentian’s eyes in no way responded to the rallying look in his own. In ready sympathy with her mood he, too, became serious. “My dear little sweetheart, don’t bother your head about me. I’m all right. You’re as bad as mother. She always thinks I am going to enrich the churchyard mould if I look the least bit pipped. As a matter of fact, I don't sleep over well, but that is nothing new. I never have; don’t know why.” "Do you ever take anj’thing for it?” Gentian's heart thumped heavily as she asked the apparently light question. “Ah, there you’ve hit it!” said Paul. "I’ve filled myself up so chock full of stuff from time to time that’s it’s pretty well bound to have an effect now. Still, you can't stop awake all night, you know, weeks oil end; it makes 3’ou so beastly nervy. I made up my mind, seriousl}', to stop taking the stuff, but I’ve had such a bad go of sleeplessness the last mouth or two that I’ve simply had to take something for it.” “What do you take?” "Oh, bromide, veronal, chloral, any old thing that’ll do the trick for the time being. I’ve tried ’em all.” “But, Paul.” she exclaimed, "it must be fearfully bad for your heart! ” “That’s what old Wakeman preaches about, but, as I always say to him, it’s better to have a wobbly heart than a wobbly head, now, isn't it? And sometimes it’s a case of the one thing or the other. Not that it isn’t bad for the brain, too, in the end; I’ll admit that. But everything’s bad for something if you take it in excess. I haven’t got to that stage yet,” he said lylie looked down at her with his sud-

den attractive smile, tightening his arm about her shoulders. “So don't you think you are going to do the widow-before-you’re-a-wife stunt with me, because you’re not!’ , he added. “Nothing is going to do me out of you now I’ve got you! ” Gentian smiled faintly, then she made a supreme effort. ‘ Paul, you never taken morphia, or anything like that, have you?” "Oh, yes. that among the rest,” he answered simply. "I took rather a lot of it once, but for some time I more or less dropped the stuff.” He paused on a recollection of his valiant efforts the previous winter, in those, days of his love for Gentian. “And now?” She felt the remorselessness of her persistence, but at the same she was chiefly conscious of a most overwhelming need to know. He nodded. "I ve been so awfully jumpy lately, and it’s the only thing that touches it. As soon as I get right, again I’ll dmp it at once. I promise you.” He said this with easj* optimism, but Gentian, still troubled, replied sadly; It is a habit more easy to acquire than to drop, isn't it, Paul?” I suppose it is,” he confessed, “but that'll be all right." Then he laughed. I acquired it purposel}*, too!” Purposel} - ?” es. Oh, I was a silly young fool. It was just after my college days. I never told you that story, did I?” Gentian shook her head. He got up from the arm of her chair, lit a cigarette, threw the match carelessly. through the window, then resumed his former se.at, in the chair opposite her own. There he crossed his legs and leant back with a reminiscent Well, it was all Dolly’s fault, reallv,” he began. 1 was up in town, just young enough to think I knew everything and a bit over, and getting into pretty much every sort of mischief to prove it, don’t you know. And there I came across Dolly and tumbled head over ears straight away. Her name wasn t Dolly, really—l forget what it was, but, anyhow, everybodv called her Dolly and it sort of fitted her. Not that she was like a doll, but she was neat and small, with huge brown eves and the wickedest wide-awake stare in them. By Jove, she did know how to use those eyes of hers! ”

Paul paused in meditative recollection. Gentian listened with a curious detachment of spirit, a sensation she had experienced mor& than once with relation to Paul, It was as if. for the time being, she were a stranger casually overhearing another stranger speaking aloud to himself. The thought of her engagement to this man who was so indifferently unveiling dubious episodes in his past life, seemed to have no significance. Her principal feeling, apart from a detached interest, was one which almost amounted to eavesdropping. Paul was proceeding once more with his narrative. I went mad over her, like a regular young idiot, and she appeared to be just as mad about me, but I thought afterwards that it was the money I flung about and spent on her that mattered most. I can’t blame her for that though; I probably spoilt her myself—nothing good enough for her, and all that. Anyhow, I had a run for my money! I took her over to Paris and on to Monte—she loved it there, trotting about in all the pretty frocks I'd got her in Paris! As for the tables—you couldn’t get her away! She lost no end of money, but she was always so dead sure she’d make a fortune the next time that, bless you, I never minded paying up. Well, we had nine or ten months of the terrestrial paradise business and then the trouble began. One day—we were in town then, in a suite, of rooms—in walked a man who announced calmly that he was her husband! It was the first. I’heard that she had ever had a husband, and, of course, I didn’t believe it, and told him to go to the devil. However, he wouldn’t. He stopped, and started to make himself disagreeable. And then Dolly began to make a scene—tears and hysterics stunt. I was a bit nettled at the whole, thing and at her being upset and that; but she was a cute little puss! I’ve often thought, since, that she arranged those hysterics while she mentally sorted things out a bit; tossed up, so to speak, heads for him and tails for me! Well, he looked a truculent blighter and was so evidentlv determined to make himself nasty that she must have decided to let heads win. After that, she finished the hysterics on his neck. Naturally, I was really peeved about that and wanted explanations. I got 'em, too! The little beggar had the cool cheek to inform me that I’d only been tolerated on account of her unbearable heart hunger for her absent husband, and now that he had come home I could .go away and lose myself as speedily as possible ! Well, of course, that tore it! I was quite equal to pitching the blighter out if she hadn’t wanted him, but that was the limit!” Paul uncrossed his legs and leant forward in a favourite attitude, his hands between his knees, his brows wrinkled up as he went on speaking. “I went off, dead sure that my heart was broken and all the bits were knocking about and giving me gyp inside; rotten outlook, rotten world, might-as-well-go-to-the-devil sort of feeling—you know!—and so I proceeded to do it. That night I thought it was up to me to do the tragedy business in style, so I took my broken heart to an opium den. The experiment was soothing at the time, but it had such beastly unpleasant after-effects that I felt even Dolly wasn’t worth a repetition of it, so morphia was my next bid for trouble. And, by gad, I got the trouble all right! Have you ever taken morphia?” he asked Gentian suddenly. She shook her head. “Never,” she replied emphatically. “Well, don’t you ever do it for, once you get seriously started, it is the very dickens to stop. I got to a stage when I couldn't have stopped by myself. I was mad for the stuff—stark mad for it! ” j Paul p used impressively to give em- 1 phasis to his words; then once more : he continued, his first sentence sending a stab of painful surprise through Gentian’s heart. (To be Continued.)