Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-09-19
A LOVES LIKENESS.

Next to requited attachment one OF
the most convenient things that a young
man can carry about with him at the be-
ginning of his career is an unrequited at
tachment 1t makes him feel important,
and business like, and blase, and cynical;
and whenever he has touch of liver COM
plant, or suffers from want of exercise,
he can mourn over his lost love and be
very happy in tender, twilight fashion.
Hannasyde's affair Of the heart had been
godsend to him. 1t was four years old,
and the girl had long since given up think
ing of it. She had married and had many
cares of her own. In the beginning she
had told Hannasyde that, while she could
never be anything more than q sister to
him, she would always take the deepest in
terest in his welfare" This startlingly new
and original remark gave Hannasyde some
thing to think over for two years, and his
own vanity filled in the other twenty-four
months. Hannasyde was quite different
from Phil Garron, but, none the less, had
several points in common with that far too
lucky man.
He kept his unreqntcd attachment by
him as men keep a wei; smoked pipe-for
comforts sake, and because it had grown
llCttI Ill UIlC uS1uSS ~ O1OtiSodo dAA1i 1eAP
PLY through the Simla season. Hannasyde
was not lovely. There was a crudity in his
manners and roughness in the way in
which he helped a lady on to her horse
that did not attract the other sex to him,
even if he had cast about for their favor,
which he did not. He kept his wounded
heart all to himself for awhile.
Then trouble came to him. All who go
to Simia know the slope from the tele-
graph to the public works Office. Hanna
syde was loafing up the hill one September
morning between calling hours when a
'rickshaw came down in hurry, and in
the 'rickshaw sat the living, breathing
image of the girl who had made him so
happily unhappy. Hannasyde leaned
against the ratings and gasped. He wanted
to run down hill after the 'rickshaw, but
that was impossible; so he went forward
with most of his blood in his temples.
It was impossible, for many reasons, that
the woman in the 'rickshaw could be the
girl he had known. She was, he discov-
cred later, the wife of a man from Dindi-
gul, or Coimbatore, or some out-of-the-way
place, and she had come up to Simla early
in the season for the good of her health.
She was going back to Dindigul, or wher-
ever it was, at the end of the season, and
in all likelihood would never return to
Simla again, her proper Hill station being
Ootacamund That night Hannasyde,
raw and savage from the raking up of all
old feelings, took counsel with himself for
one measured hour What he decided
upon was this, and you must decide for
yourself how much genuine affection for
the old love, and how much very natural
inclination to go abroad and enjoy himself
affected the decision. Mrs. Landys-Hag-
CERT would never in all human likelihood
cross his path again. So whatever he did
didn't much matter. She was marvelously
like the girl who "took a deep interest"
and the rest Of the formula. All things
considered, it would be pleasant to make
the acquaintance of Mrs. dys-Haggert,
and for little time-only a very little
time-to make believe that he was with
Alice Chisane again. Every one is more or
less mad on one point Hannasyde's par
ticular monomania was his old love, Alice
Chisane.
He made it his business to get introduced
to Mrs. Haggert, and theintroduction pros
pered. He also made it his business to see
as much as he could of that lady. When
man is in earnest as to interviews the IA
cilities which Simla offers are startling.
There are garden parties and tennis parties
and picnics and luncheons at Annandale,
and rifle matches and dinners and balls;
besides rides and walks, which are matters
of private arrangement Hannasyde had
started with the intention of seeing like
ness, and he ended by doing much more
He wanted to be deceived, he meant to be
deceived and he deceived himself very thor
oughly. No only were the face and figure
%J,a foo and fiu1 of A1ioa Ebico,,o I,y1t
the voice and lower tones were exactly the
same and SO were the turns of speech; and
the little mannerisms that every woman
has of gait and gesticulation were abso-
lutely and identically the same
The turn of the head was the same; the
tired look in the eyes at the end of a long
walk was the same; the stoop and wrench
over the saddle to hold in a pulling horse
was the same; and once, most marvellous
of all, Mrs. acknowledgement singing to
herself in the next room, while Hannasyde
was waiting to take her for ride, hum
med note for note, with a throaty culver
of the voice in the second line, "Poor Wan
dering One!'' exactly as Alice Chisane had
hummed it for Hannasyde in the dusk of
an English drawing room. In the actual
woman herself-in the soul of her-there
was not the least likeness, she and Alice
Chisane being cast in different molds. But
all that Hannasyde wanted to know and
see and think about was this naddening
and perplexing likeness of face and voice
and manner. He was bent on making a
fool of himself that way, and he was in no
sort disappointed.
Open and obvious devotion from any sort
Of man is always pleasant to any sort OF
woman; but Mrs. Landys-Haggert, being
woman of the world, could make nothing
of Hapnasyde's admiration.
He would take any amount Of trouble
he was selfish man habitually-to meet
and forestall, if possible, her wishes. Any
thing she told him to do was law; and he
was, there could b&no doubling it, fond OF
her company SO long as she talked to him,
and kept on talking about trivialitles. But
when she launched into expression OF her
personal views and her wrongs, those small
social differences that make the spice OF
Simla life, Hannasyde was neither pleased
nor interested He didn't want to know
anything about Mrs. Landys-Haggert or
her experiences in the past-she hao trav-
eled nearly all over the world and could
talk cleverly-he wanted the likeness OF
Alice Chisane before his eyes and her voice
In his cars. Anything outside that remind
ing him of another personality Jared, and
he showed that it did.
Under the new postoffice one evening
Mrs. acknowledgement turned on him and
spoke her mind shortly and without warn
ing. "Mr. Hannasyde," said she, "will
you be good enough to explain why you
have appointed yourself my special cava-
lier servente? don't understand it. But
I am perfectly certain somehow or other
that you don't care the least little bit In
the world for me-" This seems to support,
by the way, the theory that no man can
act or tell lies to woman without being
found out. Hannasyde was taken off his
guard. His defense never was a strong
one. because he was always thinking Of