The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-10

Q r Y
BY HJALMAR H. BOYESEN.
copyrighted 1884, by the Author--AH Rights
Reserved.
Concluded from last week.

V.
Catharine practiced submission for month.
at the end of which time she concluded that sub
mission did not agree with her. Mr.. Romilly's
company, which was literally bestowed, did not
seem an adequate compensation for the loss of
Mr.. Greifenstetts Mr. Romilly, who during
the Greifenstett period had found her remote,
but animated and adorable, found her remote
STILL but with the accompanying attributes less
radiaatly predominant The young man was
not given to abstruse reasoning, or it would
have occurred to him that it was perhaps the
zest Of competition which had made her so SUI
premely desirable. It was the stimulus of the
composers stirring companionship which gave
that strange affiatus to her speech, which made
1t ring through the depths even of a shallow
Eoul Now it rang no more, and Mr.. Romilly,
though he did not discontinue his visits, found
his old patronizing feeling returning; and he
even abstractly contemplated the proposition
whether a man with his advantages, social and
intellectual, could not do better Catharine
would probably have admitted that he
could. In her empty life his thin voice
gave most distressing resonance, and
only made her aware how great was the empti-
ness. She had never looked upon herself as a
romantic girl, far less as one given to fantastic
speculation. But the idea occurred to her that
Der situation was like that of Lazarus, after he
had got glimpse of the glory of eternity. How
miserably tame and dreary this earthly life
must have seemed to him after he had faced the
radiance and the terror of the infinite She too,
had caught glimpses of realm of glorious
thought which lay infinitely above the frivolous
sphere in which her lot was cast She began to
ponder the problem whether her father had the
right to cripple herspirit by his arbitrary dctum,
and whether she would not be justified in re-
belling against his authority. She was twenty
one years old, and the law declared her to be her
own master. She felt sudden pang of pity for
herself as she stood debating these questions be-
fore the mirror in her dressing room She was
scarcely aware how much her face had changed
There was a new seriousness in it. which seemed
out of accord with its former soft blonde lowell
ness. A breath of the spirit had subtly altered
the lines of her features and made them beauti-
fully significant. Their modelling was somehow
ennobled with kind of plastic purity, which
one sees more rarely in American than in En-
glish women in the height of their bloom.
A new idea began to kindle in Catharines
mind as she stood there gazing into the looking
glass without seeing the lovely sight which it re-
flected Was concealment deception Had not
creature who was legally independent the
right to conceal its actions from whomsoever it
chosel Were parents meant to be the perpetual
keepers of their children's consciences2 She
had made bold launch into that turbulent
science, logic. and there was no knowing to
hat uly itS md artS
might carry her. Preliminarily they carried
her only along the familiar route of the Fifth
avenue, where in her eager intentness upon her
plan she forgot to recognize Mr.. Romilly, who
met her by accident at three street corners.
He could not escape the conclusion that she
wished to snub him, but she seemed by that
very intention to have scaled the unattainable
height upon which she again looked rare and
tantalzingly desirable.
Catharine entered fine mansion belonging
to the parents of young lady who rejoiced in
her friendship and the name Pussy Kemp. She
was an old visitor in the house and made her
way without ceremony into the back parlor,
where she sat down, picked up book, and de-
clared to the butler her intention to
wait for Miss Pussy. Miss Pussy, it appeared
which was denied her friend She was having
o musical tete a-tete with Mr.. Greifenstett
The stately march of Beethoven's splendid
chords was heard in the next ROOM which was
separated from the back parlor by closed folding
doors. Occasionally there loud ontcry, AS
if some one was shot; then tearing around the
room. q cracking of wild German interiections
desparing appeals to heaven and storm of an
Initiating objurgatious. Catharine knew so well
these scenes; she knew just how much they
meant. But for all that she felt pang of envy
that Mr.. Greifenstett should degn to enact them
with anybody but herself. She had very ten
der feeling for him at that moment. His wild
ways and his Hypothetical language seemed
charming to her, because they expressed such a
mighty concern about things, which, in her
Philistine world were supposed to be of no con
sequence. Then-she knew his touch at once
he dashed into a scherzo, which, in spite of it's
rapid movement seemed like a futile, ever
renewed attempt to feign reckless
Joy amid hopeless sorrow. There was
a subtle melancholy cadence in it
which touched her. He seemed to be playing
upon her very heart-strincs. Her eyes fel! ac-
cidentaly upon the book which she was holding
in her hand--it was Browning's MEN and
Wonderland she read wonderngy
'.Brave Galupp That was music! Good alike at
grave and gayl
I can always leave off talking when I hear master
play"
Yes, master indeed! When he danced away
over the most insuperable technical difficulties as
if they were chids play, when he breathed the
sweet aflatus of tenderest emotion, or the pas
sion of fercely wrestling soul into the strangely
intricate, vitality pulsating texture of sound
which he eonjured into momentary exlstence-it
was impossible not to see. and and feel, and lis
ten with "a GREATNESS, sympathetic triumphant
interest He invested life with nohler, loftier
meaning He summoned all the gentle spirits
that hover on the outskirts of our lives, and
by most lives are not even suspected, TO
come and dwell in secnra and a.,.ilia.