Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1883-09-13
WOOING BY PROXY.
A Pretty Love Story, Well ToI,

n EEeEly AOV0 SLOEys W eli AOlOs
She is leaning back in deep crimson
chair, with a white dress sweeping in
long shining folds about her. She is
talking to two or three men with that
rather weary grace he has grown &C
-customed to see in her, and which is so
different from the Joyous smiles of the
Jeanne de Beauien whom he loved so
long ago. He is watching her from the
opposite side of the salon as he stands
beside his hostess, and he tells himself
that it is for the last time. He is going
to her presently, and he knows just how
coldly she will raise the dark eyes that
once never met his without cOnfessing
that she loved him. He knows Just
what he will say and what she will an
:swer, and there is no need for haste in
this last scene of his tragedy.
GA man should know when he is
beaten" he is thinking, while he smiles
vaguely in reply to Nine. de Soule's
commonplace. ''There is more stupid
ity than courage in not accepting a de-
e. feat while there is yet time to retreat with
some dignity. For six weeks I have
. shown her, with a directness that has,
L dare say, been amusing to our mutual
friends, that after ten years absence my
only object in returning to Paris is her
society. She cannot avoid meeting me
in public, but she has steadily refused
to receive me when | call upon her, or
to permit me word with her alone. |
have been a fool to forget that all these
years in which l regretted her she has
naturally despised me, but at least it is
not just of her to refuse me hearing"
The moment he has been waiting for is
@ come. The little court about her dis
perses, until there is but one man beside
her, and she chances around with look
- of mild appeal against the continuance
e of his society.
De Palissier has escaped from his
hostess in an instant, and the next he is
murmuring, with the faintest suspicion
of tremor in his voice, ''Win Nine
de Miramon permit me dance?"
Thanks, M. de Palssier, but I am
not dancing this evening"" she replies,
with exactly the glance and tone he ex-
poets.
''Will madame give me a few mo-
ments' serious conversational and this
time the tremor is distinct, for even the
nineteenth-eenturyh horror of melOdrama
cannot keep a mans nerves quite steady
when he is asking a question on which
his whole future depends.
Zone does not come to balls for seri-
-ous conversation" she begins.
lightly.
''Where may come, then?" he in
terrupts, eagerly.
Nowhere. There is no need for Sc
rious conversation between us, M. de
Palissier," she replies, haughtily, and
rising, she takes the arm of the much
edited gentleman beside her, and moves
away.
1t is all he has prophesied to himself,
and yet for a moment the lights swim
dizzily before him, and the passionate
sweetness of that Strauss waltz the band
is playing stabs his heart like knife.
For moment he does not realize that
he is standing quite motionless, gazing,
with despair in his eyes, after Nine. de
MiramOn's slender, whitehead figure,
and that two or three people, who have
seen and heard, are looking at him with
that amused pity which sentimental ca
tastrophe always inspires in the specta-
tors.
Some one touches his arm presently
with her fan, and with start he comes
to himself and recognizes Lucille de
Beaujen, the young sister of Nine de
MiramOn, whom he remembers years
ago as a child, and with whom he has
danced several times this winter.
''And our waltz, monsieur" she
asks gayly. ''Do not tell me you have
forgotten it. That is evident enough,
but you should not admit it..
''Mille pardons, mademoiselle," he
mutteres, hurriedly.
al am very good tonight" she
says, putting her hand on his mechani-
'cally extended arm. Though the waltz
is half over, there is still time for YOU to
get me an ice."
So they make their way through the
salon, she talking lightly and without
pausing for reply, while he, vaguely
grateful to her for extracting him from
an awkward position, wonders also that
she should care to be so kind to a man
whom her sister has treated with such
marked dislike.
The refreshment room is almost empty
and she seats herself and motions him
to a chair beside her when he has brought
her an ice.
''Do you think, NJ lie Marquis, that it
was only to eat ices with you that 1 have
forced my society so resolutely upon
.you?" she asks, with look of earnest
ness very rare on her bright coquettish
face.