The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1883-02-15
Jack DesmOnd's Caprice
| SUMMER NIGHT IN ITALY AND THE
ADVENTURE 1T LED HIM.


ENHE had been but street-singel
~ when Jack Desmond first haC
SS3 seen and heard her, this dark
] S@S eyed beauty who now held the
world of Rome at her feet.
The meeting between them haG
taken place some four years pre-
viously and had been sufficiently
I romantic even for an Italian story
He was an Englishman, rich and
r cultured, making the tour of Europe
for the third or fourth time, when
one evening, sitting on the little
balcony jutting out from his room
at a quiet inn in a small italian
town, suddenly a delicious voice
had broken into delicious music.
II was a voice without cultivation,
but of rare and marvellous quality.
He leaned eagerly forward to try
and catch a glimpse of the song
stress. She stood ON the pavement
beneath, tall, slim girl, whose lus-
trous, dark eyes were upraised to
the place where he sat.
Music was Jack Desmond's pas
sion. AS yet, though he had lived
thirty years, it had been the only
abiding love his life had ever known.
"By Jove! such voice, and a
street singerw he thought to him
self as he listened. care the ears
deaf which hear and do not heed"
When the girl paused he ad
dressed her in her own liquid tongue.
"Wlll you come up here a moment,
my childp' he said kindly. "Your
music pleases me. Iwish to reward
you"
She bowed her head in assent;
and soon timid knock at the door
of his room announced her presence.
He threw it open, but started back
amazed.
The girl was possessed of wonder
full beauty. Her face, oval in shape,
was entirely colorless, save for the
rich crimson of the exquisitely-
curved lips; her hair swept back in
low, ripping waves of raven black
ness from the low brow; her eyes
were not black, as he had fancied,
but perfectly blue, large and liquid,
and full of infinite sadness.
"Take this" he said, thrusting it |
into the slim, brown fingers, "and to
morrow night come again. l may
have a plan to propose to you"
The girls face slightly flushed.
With a gesture, almost like pride,
she offered back the gold.
1T is generous, signor, but it is
charity. My song did not deserve
SO much"
Desmond laughed as he put back
her hand.
"Why, child, the day will come"
he said, ':When men would pay a
fortune for your smile! Adieu until
tomorrow"
She bent then, and ere he could !
divine her impulse, she snatched
his hand a moment to her lips, then
turned and fled.
The man slept little that night,
but when morning dawned he had
determined on his purpose. He
was rich: To crafty caprice was
to give life new zest, and this, his
latest caprice, bade fair to be an
interesting experiment.
So, when the girl came, he un
folded to her his plans. For three
years she was to study, at his ex-
pense, at the first musical conserva-
tory in Europe, then under his
patronage she was to make her
debut. After that, if she felt her
debt to him burdensome, she might |
repay it as she would. All that he
now asked of her was to work hard
and realize his dreams for her sue
cess. Would she do this?
She was very quiet in her graft
tude, but her voice trembled with
the unshed tears as she uttered her
simple words of thanks.
In private box, out of sight of
the vast audience, Jack Desmond,
on the night of her debut, listened
with flushed cheeks and parted lips |
to the enthusiastic plaudits which
marked her reception, and saw the
flowers rain at her feet, and knew |
her hour of trial was her hour Of
victory.
Again and again the house re-.
called her. Shouts of 'bravo p rent
the air, but through it all the blue
eyes never lost their look of sad
ness which so strangely marked
them, save once, and then as she
raised them to that seemingly empty
box, and sent one glance, which said
more plainly than spoken words:
"It is you, not I, who is the
worthy recipient of all this. 1t is
you to whom 1 owe it.
At that moment Jack Desmond's
heart beat with new and marvellous
thrill. In that moment Eleanor had
ceased to be merely the singer; she
was the woman.
At the end of the first month that
she sang she handed him a paper
1t represented three-fourths of her
earnings. 1t would repay him for
one year of her expenses. He would
have refused it, but with tears in
her eyes she begged him to accept it.
81 owe you so much-all, all
Think of it! Let not my debt, then,
have the added weight of money"
So, to please her, month by month
he let her hquidate her claim.
''I will find means to make it
useful to her." he thought, and laid
the money by in the form in which
she gave it.
One night, after the opera, he had
accompanied her home. They were
alone moment in her parlor, filled
with fragrant flowers and innumer-
able offerings laid at her shrine.
She wore thin white dress, when,
in reaching her arm upward, the
: material caught in the flame of a
candle and blazed upward. She
uttered slight scream, and stood
:. paralyzed with terror.
He tore off his coat and threw it
? about her. 1t was all the work OF
: an instant. With but few slight