Birmingham age-herald., 1894-12-02

 hair, and even the look of her high square shoulders as she swayed them slightly to the rhythm of the music. The very song she was singing reyolted him: 3c
 70, think not can forget you;
 could not though would.
 Isee you in a--alI a-round mo.
 The stream, the might, the wood''
 declared the lady at the piano, turning slowly round and regarding the young man with inviting eyes Their gaze met the back of his head, for he had risen from the sofa, and was standing at the window, whistling under his breath as he looked out over the Straits of Gibraltar-out to that bluish-gray coast line of Africa where lived the girl of his heart.
 ''Dody!" said the singer ih a cooing voice, which fell oddly from her hard, thin lips, you're not listening to me. You're really getting too horrid. And you used to love this song"
 The piano stopped abruptly. In the small drawing-room of the villa on the road to Europa Point there was no sound but the interrogative, agitated ticking of the French clock on the man. telpiece-a mantelpiece covered with portraits of officers in uniform, of varying ages, but all grasping white gloves or swords, or busbys, with a martial air. Richard Eardley did not answer; his eyes and his thoughts had turned to an English man-of-war which was passing slowly along on the silvery water of the straits. If only her hus- band were on that boatl But Mrs. Leadam's husband was commanding his ship in Hong Kong harbor, and from Mrs. Leadam herself there seemed no immediate mode of escape. Dick cursed his folly as he stood there, and the piano went tinkling on. |. If Betty, over yonder in Tangiers, should hearof this old entanglement, it would go hiAas with his chances. He remem- -heyed her pronounced opinions, her keen sense of humor, and he asked himself if she would ever consent to enter the lists as rival to Mrs. Lead am? And that the woman at the piano would not give him up without protest-and he dreaded to think what form her protest would take-he was equally convinced.
 How it had all begun, years ago, in that other foolish life before he had met Betty Marlowe, he could hardly remember now. He had an indistinct recollection of himself as a callow subaltern at Portsmouth, and of a cer- tain villa near Southsea, with pine wood in the garden, and of a woman of thirty or so who had seemed in every way desirable to him then. But was this the same Rose Leadam, he asked himself wonderingly, this woman with the touched-up lips and the ridiculous love-songs, on whose mantelpiece the officers of two regiments made a sonne- what preposterous array? There were Meadows-Dempsey and Capt, Abrahams, and the doctor (the doctor was good looking, and fond of ladies), why, in heavens name, couldn't she care about them in the same way she did about him? Was he, he asked himself, with groan, to have this horrible millstone round his neck for good and always2 Was he never to be free-never to out live his boyish folly never to have done with the past?
 Over yonder lay Tangiers, with it's low, white-plastered houses rising in tiers mp the hill above the harbor; it's Casbah, its mosque, it's steep, cobbled streets, its donkeys, dogs, babies, fruit sellers it's crimson shod women, its strings of laden camels and it's gardens full of pricl1ly pears. He could see it in his minds eye now, as he stood in the meager, British-looking drawing room; remembered, to a nicety, the ex- quisite coloring, the oriental splendor against which he always pictured the pretty head, the slight figure of Betty Marlowe, that slim girl with the curly hair and the impertinent nose, of whom he had lately grown immoderate- ly fond, but of whose feelings towards himself he had been left in state of soul7torturing indecision. Sometimes she was nice to him, sometimes she was not There were moments, he told himself with a curse at his own folly. when she was almost as charming to any of the other men in his regiment.
 He was accustomed to sec her often, for Tangiers counts among it's attrac- tions as q winter residence it's proxim- ity to our ''Key to the Mediterranean. Men stationed at Gibraltar cross the straits for plg-Sticklng in Morocco; ladies wintering in Tangicrs go over to inspect the galleries, to dance on the ironclads in the harbor, or to loiter in the Alameda on the Rock" Lady Marlowe, in addition, had n brother high in command at Gibraltar, so that mother and daughter were seen at most of the big military entertainments, and Dick was forced to own that Betty had well-uigh the whole garrison to choose from For the past week or two, every one had been talking of the big masked ball which the Marlowes were to give on Twelfth night. All Gibraltar had been invited, but among the prospec- tive guests Mrs. Lcadam had not been included. This omission was not, as she supposed, and asserted with some what unnecessary, loudness. due to