BEAUTIFUL JACONETTE.

Waipa Post, Volume IX, Issue 432, 16 July 1915, Page 3

BEAUTIFUL JACONETTE.

BY CLIVE HOLLAND. Author of "My Japanese Wife," "An Egyptian Coquette," "The Seed of the Poppy," "Marcelle of the Latin Quarter," etc.

A SHORT STORY.

(All Rights Reserved.)

PART 11. But Jaconette was ill at ease. Something seemed to tell her that Bettany would not come, and then she turned to Comstock, and said quickly: "Monsieur Comstock, you know why Monsieur Bettany is not here?" A shadow went over Comstock's face, and for a moment he did not reply to the girl's question, but seemed to regard her almost unseeingly. "What is the matter with Bettany,

anyhow?" said Giles Smethwick. "Yes, what is the matter with him —anyhow, old sawbones?" said Jules la Fontaine. And then the whole of them fired off questions simply because Comstock answered none of them.

At last the latter, driven in a corner by the cross-fire of inquiries, said slowly: ""Bettany is very sick, I am afraid. I do not know what it is, but, anyway, it is serious. He was taken ill quite suddenly. I was with him the best part of the night, and 1 only left this morning- to go to the Clinique after I had found one of the little Sisters to look after him. Tie did not know anyone in the early morning hours, and I'm afraid he'll have a tough fight to pull through. While Comstock was speaking Jaconette ?at with her hands clenched and resting on the edge of the table, and her face almost as white as a sheet. Marie Dercourt noticed it and smiled. Tt was so like Jaconette to take things to heart, thought the other girl, who had a reputation for being- brilliantly heartless. Then, as Comstock refused to say any more, Jaconette suddenly rose. "Hullo.'', said La Fontaine. "What is the matter? Where are you off to?" and he laid his hand on her arm as though to detain her. Quite roughly she threw the engaging clasp off, and pushed her way from behind the table past the knees of Smethwick. " 1 am going to the Rue Monsieur Le Prince," she said. I am going to Monsieur Bettany." Marie Dercourt laughed. The others of the group, with the exception of Comstock, said either, "Don't be a fool, Jaconette," or "Plenty of time; the Sister is with him,, and he will h« well looked after. Just stay for a bock"; or merely, "I should not go, if I were you." It was not that the men were heartless, or that they wished to desert "Bettany. But something in Comstock's face had told them that it would be better for Jaconette's own sake not to go. But in the heart of the girl there stirred a wonderful pity, bred of love, which seemed to draw her feet towards the studio at the top of the house where Bettany lay. | So she simply said: "My friends, • I am going," and, gathering her) skirts in one hand as she crossed thej sanded floor, she passed out into the [ sunshine and sped away down the j Boulevard.

When she had gone Comstock said very slowly: "It does not matter now she has gone, but I fear that Bettany is down with smallpox. Where he can have got it heaven only knows, but I have never seen the symptoms if I am mistaken this time."

"You .should have told her," said Jules la Fontaine, slowly. "It would be to ruin her if she caught it, for her good looks are her stock-in-trade. You should not have forgotten that." "Maybe, I shouldn't," said Cornstock slowly, after a moment's pause. "But Jules, my friend, it would have made no difference. The girl was bound to go, and I knew it.' "Ah." said Marie, "we women are fools where you men are concerned, if only you have crept or fought your way into our hearts." But nobody felt like arguing the point with Marie, for the gloom of a personal calamity seemed to enwrap the little party in the Cafe des Lilas. 11. Jaconette's feet hurried as they had scarcely ever, hurried before. She had never hastened to a rendezvous for pleasure as she hastened to this rendezvous —it might be with Death. Over the cobblestones of the narrow street, which took her by a short cut I to the Rue Monsieur Le Prince, there) went the click, click of her "high-heel- j ed shoes as she hastened along. I People, as she sped by, turned to watch her, wondering what could causs her to be hurrying at such a pace. Several of .the workgirls smiled, and more than one whispered to her companion slyly, "Surely she goes to meet a lover." At last Jaconette reached the shab-1 by doorway, off which many winters' frosts had peeled most of the original paint, that led into the courtyard and j to the staircase by which Bettany's i studio was reached. It was a long I climb up, for Bettany, who was not rich although he had a small private income, used to say, with a smile, "I like to live a s near the stars as possible." And when at last she reached the well-known door and rapped upon it, she was breathless from the five long, flights of stairs which |

I she had climbed and the excitement '•under which she was laboring. | She rapped twice before the door ! was opened By a white-coiffed Sister of Charity, whose sweet, sad face was scarcely less colourless than the spotless linen band with which it was environed. With her eyes the Sister looked at Jaconette, wondering at the beauty of the girl's face and the look of almost terrified anxiety which lay at the back of her eyes.

"What is it you want, my child?" asked Sister Cecilia.

"I want Monsieur Bettany," was the brief, eager reply. "Alas, mademoiselle," said the Sister, "Monsieur Bettany is ill—very ill—and I scarcely think that you should linger here." "But I have come to 'look after him," said Jaconette, almost fiercely, as she realised that possibly this gentle-looking Sister might standi between her and the man she loved.

"But it is impossible—" said the Sister.

"Not at all, Sister," said J aeon* ette, interrupting hastily. "I am here—look at me—and I am going to stay and nurse Monsieur Bettany." And then, with a quick glance, she seemed intuitively to know that the Sister had a tender heart, and though set aside from the world in which she (Jaconette) moved, would comprehend; and she added hastily: "Cannot you understan3, "Sister? I love Monsieur Bettany. We are friends, and I must stay." For a moment the Sister said nothing. She was thinking of what her duty was. Perhaps, she thought, it was to insist upon the girl who stood defiant before her leaving at once. And yet in the Sister's heart, low down perhaps, covered over with vows and buried as it were from the light and from life, lay the prompting heart of a woman who could understand. And so she said at length, very gently: "My child, you scarcely can know what your friend is suffering from.'' And then Jaconette, still standing outside the door in a patch of sunlight which streamed down upon her head and said: "I know nothing, Sister, except that "I love him and that he will want me—surely he will want me—and that I have come here to watch over him."

j Still, for a moment or two the Sis- > ter hesitated, and then, doubtful in I her own mind at the wisdom of allow- [ ing her heart to be touched, she said :i "Very well, my child; if what you say is true, perhaps I have no reason to prevent your coming." And ■ thus it was that Jaconette entered into the chamber and remained; where Bettany lay unconscious, racked with fever, and already hideous enough from the 'disease to have driven a stout"heart away that was untouched :byj_. a . Idieep, consuming; love. During the next few days Jaconette and Sister Cecilia fought death for Bettany hour by hour, and unrestingly; and kept it at bay. Every morning the Sister looked into the eyes of Jaconette and Jaconette into tho.se of the Sister, wondering .what the issue of life and death would be—.wondering if either or both of them would them- ! selves fall ill. • They had succeeded, with the docj tor's connivance, in keeping the na- ; ture of Bettany's illness from the [ other inhabitants of the house. No one tame up the last fight of stairs to 'the hugh studio and little cup-board-like ante-room which the poet artist rented, and thus up towards the sky the silent fight with! death jsent on day by day, until the victory was won, and Bettany vvas : *on the fair road to recovery. . v But he was blind! " j (To be CoirtinuedJ)

SHORT AND COUB2TSHIPS; Young ladies in Russia are Dot at' all averse to long 'engagements, and use all sorts of artifices to . stave off the wedding day as long as possible; whilst.in Siam, 'where old maids e unknown, as all girls marry, the recognised length of an engagement is ona? month. If an engaged man in the Argentine Republic dallies . beyond a reasonable time in leading his fiancee to the altar he is heavily fined, and if a resident of the republic should -foil to marry he is taxed until he reaches the age of eighty. In no country in 'he? world are courtships so abnormally long as in Bohemia, where engagements commonly last from fifteen 'o twenty years; in fact, there recently died at the age of ninety-nine an old man who had been, courting for seven-ty-five years and who was married an bis death-bed. 'ABOUT? THE EYEBROWS. If you lhave scanty -eyebrows and want them to grow thick, the worst thing you can do is to cut them. This applies also to the eyelashes, which, if at should be cut during the baby<hood—not after. The beauty of tho brows consists i;n their being; smooth, glossy and well'defined, "pencilled" ; as the novelists put it; and the;y should curve in a graceful arch over the eyes. Cutting them destroys these qualities, by causing thorn to grow coar.se, stiff and irregular. The best thing' to use for promoting, a glossy growth i ; s pure lanoline. whicji may be applied aU night time. This us safe and helps to* darken tho hair.. It may ho applied sparingly also t o the lashes. Gently o ombing them r «-ice a day, or brushing , with a very so ft brush, will help to tl 'a' ll them in t £© right direction. „ M