The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1895-11-02

The officer gA5ed at her wonderlngly
so young, so beautiful, so resple ndent,
90 sad. 50 imploring. Perhaps, her last
arguments gave him ,esuss, sAn IA then
7 the statements relative to his courage
j they were certainly true lit was we'll
j known. And to win the Sarazines
Beauxlieux, perhaps, to the empire--it
might be worth while. And then q
mad, rash humor seized him. Mad
ame," he said, ST will accede to your
wishes on one condition. Your hus-
bands blow still tingles on my cheek.
I will repay it-by leaving my kiss
upon the cheek Of his wife"
For a moment the duchesse turned,
gaspingly, holding both hands to
Olympic and her pallor, where the rose
bloomed beneath the ivory, became the
pallor Of death. But directly she had
summoned her resources. What had
she come here for but to purchase the
life of her boys father at any costP
She turned again and glanced up at
him. and then dropped her lids till the
long black lashes swept her marble
cheek. s'Volontiers, MONSIEUR" she
said, and she made step forward,
softly turning her cheek. y n
But the man did not move. The beau
tiful creature there, 80 proud, 50 chaste,
willing to purchase safety for her
child's father at the price Of this in-'
suit to herself, this insult Of which in
all the years of her life she would be
sensible, the color now rising slowly
in her cheek, wildly, in a stain, as if
to meet the affront. No, he could notl
.sForgive me,'' he said. "And go.
You have saved your husbands lite
for my bullet would have pierced his
heart. 60. / will keep your secret. :"
And doubling her senses, bewildered,
full Of joy, the duchess suddenly fell
on her knees before him and seized his
hand and covered it with kisses. And
then Olympic had the cochs-neisere about
her, and the officer had gone down
with them and put her into the car.
,riage. When the duchess recalled
that scene and it's expressions of her
gratitude, she knew it never would
have happened so but for that Basque
woman, her peasant grandmother.
And SO it came about that no chal-
lenge arrived at the Hotel Beauxlieux
the next day, nor any day thereafter.
And when mis- wonderment had sub
sided, the contempt that the duke all
ready felt for the new people was a
thousand times enhanced by the cir
cumstance. IA court of shopkeepers!"
he cried. An imperial guard who kept
silence under a slap on the face--they
were all part and parcel together-he
despised them, and was at no pains to
keep his despising quiet. And thus
this very action of the duchess was
the cause of his making himself more
offensive to the imperialists than he
had been, so offensive that at last it
was open war with Duke des Sara
zines Beauxlieux, and he found the old
chateau in the Landes, a place better
Paris where kings had been his guests.
But after all it was not love, certain
" not wifely love, that had made the
duchesse interfere on her husbands ac-
count in that matter Of tie challenge.
It was life to save-and she her.
self the cause of the trouble-n would
have been almost as necessary for her
to try to avert the evil had the person
concerned been st. Malo, or Montague
vert, or a stranger. She had a warm
and quiet affection for her husband, an
immense belief in him and admiration
for him, but that was all sll., :st<ss 3
When the duke died and left her with
his son, she wept; she was bereft. But
here was the duke, and now all the
more the duke, all the more proudly
and fondly insisted on since shorn Of
imperial favor.
For before the duke died, after, he
had refused the friendship Of the en-
peror and had confronted his hostility,
and had returned with his wits and
child and the people of his court to the
old residence on the Atlantic shores, it