The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-03-27

then the carriages depart; they are alone
for the iirst time in the narrow space Of
| the earn age, which the bridal dress fills
with its wilderness, and the bouquet OF
orange bl ossoms with It's acute perfume
of intoxica ting virginity; and it is then
that. conuu sred by the charm of tina,
face, SO de vcate and proud amid its
large pallid curls, by the splendor OF
those blue ey, - the elderly bridegroom
bends over her 10 kiss her.
Dear me, de ar me"
And to see tn, tranquility with which
those finely cut, rose colored lips return
the kisses through, the veil. the question
arises whether it /. Is the bridegroom that
| she kisses or the Me vhlin lace, at five hun
dred the meter.
All! there were atiorers around that
beautiful Signora Ma. rcEis, SO lovely and
so young, married to an old mani 1t
was expected that this fortress would be
an easy one to conGu, e. Precisely on
her wedding day Vico Eolise, the most
elegant and skeptical Of the journalists
Of Upper Italy, had p:o. founded to his
friends this theorem:
s'Given a beautiful g. RI, very poor;
given that she marries rich old man;
divide the number of his years by that
Of the hundreds of thousa1 Ms of lire of
which she becomes mistl ess, and you
will have the number of L ,onths neces-
sary for her to take lover"
And as soon as he cou Id he began,
with many others, to attem. pit the demon
stration Of that theorem.
Well, this time the impec cable pyscho-
logical diagnosis of Vico Mclise had been
found to fail. Not only, after some
months, the beautiful Signora Marchis
had no lover, but it appeared also that
she never was to have one.
Always dressed with an adorable ele-
gance, with a luxury full of good taste,
the beautiful Comma loved to amuse
herself, moving freely in that society
new for her, finding herself in her right
place as marvellous plant in vase of
valuable porcelain, developing itself in
all its splenGor. She went to dances, to
the theatre, enjoying the plebisclte of
admiration provided by her beauty, CO.
quoting little with her adorers, fut-
tering about the fire in order to make
them sparkle, her wings Of golden but
terhy, but never letting herself be
burned.
In the very moment of declaration,
in the midst Of one of those waltzes
whose notes seem made On purpose to
stifie expiring virtue in their serpentine
spirals, she cut short her adorer by turn
ing her angelic head and saying serenely:
II don't see my husband. Look a
little where my husband is, if you will
be so kind"
And it was known that her greatest
delight was to relate precisely to her
husband the declarations which she had
received. When she came home with
him from a ball, all wrapped in the
white silken folds of her sortie du bal,
with herpur throat, hersnowy shoulders
that blossomed still more fair from her
swansdown boa; when in the evening
she met him in the dining room, still in
visiting costume, with her slim waist
tightly compressed by an exouisitely ele-
CANT gown, with her face animated by
the slight excitement which elegant con-
versation always produces in a young
woman, she amused herself immensely
in addressing to her husband some of
these provoking and rogish phrases:
"You know, wasat Countess Foschis'.
Molise was there, you know. Always
faithful and always in despair. And
also Comelli, he that has such lugubri-
GUS gallantry. He has promised to kill
himself for my sake within a month;
we shall see. All! Ahr'
And sitting opposite to him, in rustic
of satin and jet, making shine like two
stars the briliants, large as hazelnuts.
which adorned her small ears, she con-
tinued to laugh, with her elastic laugh
ter, full of mischief and full of tender
ness.
All, indeed, old Marchis could call
himself fortunate man!
Fortunate? Yes, he ought to have |
considered himself so. When he set |
himself to reason about it, to describe !
mentally his conjugal situation, he had |
to conclude that he would have done |
yet
What of the terribly unexpected had |
he now discovered in the depths of the |
pure sapphire of Commas eyes? Was
there arisen in his soul the doubt that |
that faithfulness against every trial,
that GOODNESS toward her admirers. was
nothing but the wish TO preserve intact
a position acquired with difficulty, and |
that precisely to that position was di-
rected all the tenderness shown toward
himself! l do not know. but the vivid
and impetuous JOY of the wedding was
no longer in him, although his love re-
NAMED the same, and a painful doubt
thrilled in his voice when ne replied TO
the playful confidence of Comma, for
cling himself to laugh. too.
Take care, now, take care-the VEN
geance Of the tyrant hangs over you
All, the poor tyrant, how lie loved heri
How she had known how TO bind him
with her little hands, white and per-
funed as two lilies. For nothing in the
world would he have discovered the
truth, changed into certainty his TO-
menting doubt: So she had only to ask in
order TO obtain: for now for him that
love OF which he doubted had become his
life. and he felt painful structure at his
heart at the mere thought that a dav
might come when he would be obliged
to refuse her something. Yet that day
Came. Suddenly, by one OF those 1nys-
terious complications of business. his
bank. which until then had gone from
70 |