The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1895-11-14
CHAPTER VIII.
DaIrymple Sees Too Much and Toe
Little.

This. this has thrown Il serpent TO
my heart
While it o'erfowed with tenderness,
with joy,
With all the sweetness OF eXulting
love.
Now nOught but gall is there and
burning poison
What you will returns he. and
presently something is chosen, n
melody such as is not often heard in
private life is swelling the air. Con-
versation languisheS, and though Mrs.
Maxwell, who is angry, tries to keep
it up. soon dies away altogether. Ev-
erybody gives him and herself u more
comfortable shake into the chair Oc-
cupied and prepares to listen with u
glad heart.
All except Dalrymple! His heart
| seems on fire. To see her there, SO
thoroughly bon camarade of that con
temptible libertine. makes his own
honest blood boil in his veins. 1t GER
tainly wouldn't have boiled at all had
the 'libertine" been talking to any
other girl; it probably would not so
much as reached a tepid heat; but that
he should dare to aspire to Eleanor
leaves only one ~desire-that the good
old dark ages We're once more here,
when to run a fellow citizen through
the body would be accounted a a
mere casuaity-a necessary hint-a
playful reminder that your patience
had a limit and no more.
In truth. it seems to Dalrymple that
he cannot bear to look at her, stand
ing there with her violin pressed
against her shoulder, thO0gh in reality
she is as fair a thing as Nature eve
made. "a sight to make an old man
young"
She is standing a little forward in
her white gown with IN hand and
arm raised. Her small. naughty head
Is thrown a little backward. and side
ways. as if naturally inclining toward
the beloved instrument. The lovely
pearls around her neck CLEAN and rise
and fall with each soft breath she
draws, emitting tiny scintillating
sparks Of light. She is playing now
at last with n verye, an abandon, that
thrills the hearers and betrays the
genius that is hers; muSic'S own soul,
without which it knows no real life.
Her playing is remarkable. even in
an age where one insists on perfection
or nothing; and her companion does
Ser justice. DartfOr' indeed expresses
himself not only with force but with
feeling. Strange anamOly in 4 man to
whom heart is unknown. He accom-
panicS her. indeed, with such taste,
with such sympathy, that one might
readily believe that at least the
shadow Of his pretty companions man,
tie has fallen upon him.
Having begun, and raviShed the ear
with RubinStein, they pass or to light,
er, more frivolous themes. and at last
Eleanor, as If stung by Dalrymple'S
late C~enSOrOuS glance to a thoroughly
childish display of recklcssDP.S, pass,
es into a movement low. seductive, en-,
trancing, the very food of love. She
has selected it out of piQue. regardless
Of consequences. and ignorant Of Dart.
ford's feelings toward her. 1t is un,
m~istakably a love song. of the passion,
ate Portuguese type. and eXQuisitely
rendered as it is holds the room spell
bound.
Then follow some charming bits
from Wagner; something of Eleanor'S
genius seems to have entered into
hartford, because he plays now as he
never played before. with Il spirit, q
brio hardly TO he rivalled. Iuto his
touch, too, he has thrown that sus
picion of righteousness that has actu
ated Eleanor all through; it is as
though he had caught 1t from her.
And now 1t Is over, the last long
drawn note has sounded, and silence