The Portland daily press., 1880-06-19
THE PRESS.
Her Rival.
A Story of the Latin Quarter, Paris.

Ing the price of some moth-eaten, battered
volume from the equally moth eaten and
battered proprietor, meditating over his
pipe under the budding trees. She was very
prettily and very daintily dressed, but her
face and carriage showed so much quiet res
olution and self-reliance, that the boldest
idler of the Boulevards would have been de-
tered from annoying her even in cynical
Paris and on the very boundary of the Latin
Quarter. She was deep in quaint little
copy of 'sLa Bruyere," some sixty years old
which was offered at half franc, when she
heard burst of light laughter not far from
her ear, so strangely mingled of sweetness
and kind of haunting mockery that she in
voluntarily raised her eyes.
Approaching her were young man and a
girl, perhaps two or three years older than
herself, and as near the perfection of physi-
cal beauty as it was possible for woman to
be, Miss de Forrest acknowledged to her.
self with strange pang. She had profu-
sion of pale, chestnut hair. skin of lilies
and roses, large liquid eyes, perfectly de-
veloped figure, and an undulating grace of
motion which did not belong to the streets
of Paris. She was perfectly we'll dressed !;
but while Miss de Forrest, in her own toilet
displayed the happy medium between chic
dignity characteristic of the demOi-
selle d. meiIlenr monde of whatever nation
atty, the girl who suddenly confronted her
with an impairment glance had more of the
quality of chic than was strictly desirable
"She is not lady," thought Miss de Forest,
"a grisette, probably and the jealous pang
deepened, for the man accompanying this
girl-the man who raised his hat without
looking at her, while faint color overspread
his handsome features and clear skin-was
the man of all others to Amy de Forest
She had loved Arthur Duncan for more than
year. had " atched the ebb and flow of his
genius, had encouraged him to new effort in
his respondent hours, and shared with him
the pleasure of his successes. There had
grown up between them comradeship
which on her side had ripened into some
thing deeper, and ON his had led to the thou
sand subtle remarks of preference which
may mean nothing or anything. And what
in other men meant nothing, seemed in Ar
thur Duncan to mean everything, so much so
that Amy de Forest, clever, self-possessed
girl as she was, had come to believe in the
absolute predominance in the scheme of her
future life of this one figure. sOnly yester-
day evening they had sat long together in the
embrasure of the wide window that looked
upon the gardens of the Luxembourg while
the lamps sprang into light through the
dusk; and when he went away, pleading an
engagement in friends studio, he had lift
ed her band to his lips in the darkness and
called her his better angel.
The girl bit her lips and opened the ''La
Bruyere" again-the bitter, healthy draught
of the old wits cynicism acted upon her as
tonic and kept back the starting tears
The lives of her men-friends outside of her
mothers drawing-room did not concern her,
she thought; but it was hard that Arthur,
with his talk of aspiration toward an ideal
and the elevation of art above sordid real
ism, should find his inspiration in the soul
of a grisette. And yet she could not blame
him; the girl was beautiful-like white
rounded water-lily with dewy petals. Per-
haps If she, herself, were a man. She
closed the book abruptly and paid the old
bouqainiste for it, and then turned up long
avenue that leads past the Pantheon to the
gardens of the Luxembourg. She liked
these gardens better than the stately alleys
of the Tuileries. There was more of the fla
vOr of old Paris about them before the Sec
ond Empire-the Paris of De Musset and
Balzac. She liked the threadbare students
with their books, the knots of sewing girls,
the bourgeoise mothers and nurses, with
the children playing around them; the old
men with red ribbons in the buttonholes of
their rusty broadcloth coats.
The Spring wind swept down the avenues
scented with fower-odors from the market
of st. Sulpice. Miss de Fol est wandered
on to where the great fountain stands, half
dried, with the water shallow over the rock
work of its basin, and green, wet boards
dripping about the Tritons and Neptunes,
and ivy throwing its arms out from its
crevices Of their shapes, and. overhead, new
leafing trees casting tender twilight upon
the quiet place. The voices of children came
from the main avenue. Miss de Forest seated
herself on the edge of the basin and looked
into the shallow water, yellow with the dead
leaves in its bed. The reflection of her own
face came back to her framed in the shadow
boughs.
There had been times when its bright
blue eyes and delicate outlines had seemed
to her to fill all the requirements of beauty,
but now, darkene1 by the decaying leaves
and with the memory of the splendid crea-
ture she had just seen rising before her, it
seemed quite impossible that any man could
ever regard her as beautiful.
Pure physical beauty is the best worth
having" she thought with little sigh. And
then she thought macy things that girl
might think under the circumstances, but
that poets set down only in allegory-the
world-old problem of the two women strug-
Cling for authority over the soul of the one
man, a. old as history;and legend--Tannhaus-
er bound in the chains of Venus while his
chaste Elizabeth awaited his return. All
men solve it for themselves, and all women
in one way or another bide the issue of it.
Miss de Forest fell to studying her dainti-
ly-gloved little hands as they lay on her lap.
and especially the place where last night
Arthur Duncan's lips had rested. A shadow
came between herself and the sunlight be-
yond the trees, and, glancing up, she saw
before her the man she loved. She looked
up at him with a smile slightly touched
with the cynicism learned from the small
book in her lap.
"What charming weather, is it not? The
air is full of Spring sounds to-day. l have
been walking long distance
"Alone, Miss de Forest?''
eyes, why not? / much prefer walking
alone unless have very agreeable compan-
ion, and you know am not demoiseue
Franchise to be bound by les conuenances."
Were these two people talking the small
est Of small talk, the two who had parted
the night before with the look in their
meeting eyes that makes speech useless? A
shadow had come between them-the shad-
ow of woman with limpid eyes and shape
like pictured goddess. There was mo-
ments silence; A bird sang in the tree
overhead, a leaf whirled down into the
translucent water, the drops trickled from
the green beard of the water god.
when will you come and see my picture,
as you promised?"
Whenever mamma will go with me. You
know l cannot go to your studio alone.'
There was distant, naughty ring in her
voice that Arthur Duncan had never heard
before.
Il am going home," she said, rising. 1
am tired-I have walked too far Will YOU
not come in this evening?'
Thanks; am sorry, but have made an
engagement which can scarcely break"
"Ahv'
May take you to your door, The
streets are full of students and all kinds of
people,
Thanks. 1 have no fear. l do not think
any one will trouble me-"
Sitting that evening in the tender spring
twilight among the flowers of the balcony
high above the street, with boy artist on a
low stool at her feet, looking up in sort of
alteration at the cloud of golden hair that
was like halo above her white gown, Amy
de Forest asked her young page if he had
seen Arthur Duncan of late.
mo one sees much of him now. He's
engaged, the fellows say, in some sort of
love affair with Spanish girl who dances
at the Butler. She posed for the picture he
has just finished. The fellows say it's an
awfully clever thing-sure to get in the Sa-
Ion next wear He flc II fbo sCaJJoc, &c