Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-03-23
CHAPTER III.


CHAPTER III.
She turned to Andreds who at that mo-
ment came along the sands of the beach,
his hands filled with rspoils from the bios
soming hedges-turned to him as when, a
little child on the staircase in the dusk,
she had run to reach the shelter Of a
warmed and lighted room. He was of her
own country, her own age. her own tenn
permanent; he carried about him a sense Of
gladEess, an atmosphere of youth; he was
and richer. There was no heaven of self
seeking in the love he bore her: the pas
sion she had reused in him was pure of any
alloy; 1t was the love of the poets and the
youth to age, would be like one of those
Towering meadows Of his own Sicily, which
fill the cloud1ess day with perfume.
She knew that: her foot was ready to
tread the nareissus-fiiled grass, but by an
unaccountable 4fndecision and caprice she
would not let him invite her thither. She
continually evaded or eluded the final
words which would have united them or
parted them.
Have you given Up your appointment"
he asked once, directly.
Damer merely answered: No" He did
not offer any explanations; but he contin-
ued to stay on in Venice, though he had
removed from the fine apartments occu-
pied by his friend to house on the Fon-
damente Nuovi, where he had hired two
chambers.
Andreis who vas very generous and had
always q grateful and uneasy sense of I'M
repaid obligation, vainly urged him to re-
main at his hotel. But Damer. somewhat
rudely, refused.
st cannot pursue any studies there" he
replied.
The house he had chosen was obscure
and uniEviting, standing amidst the clang
of coppersmiths' hammers and the stencil
of iron fcundries, In what was once the
most patrician and beautiful garden quar-
ter of Venice and which is now befouled.
blackeued. filled with smoke. and clamor
and vileness. where once the rose terraces
and the clematis-covered pergole ran down
to the lagoon and the marble stairs were
white as snow under silken awnings.
what do you do there?' Veronica wish
ed to ask him; but she never did SO; she
felt vaguely afraid, as a woman of the mid
ole age would have feared to ask a ma
gician what he did with his alembics and
his spheres.
Although the eyes OF lovers are proyerb-
tally washed by the coilyrium of jealousy
those of Andreis were blind to the passion
which Damer, like himself, had conceived
Damer were extreme, and served to screen
his secret from the not very discerning
mind Of his companion. Moreover, the
pride of race which was born and bred in
Andreis rendered it impossible for him to
suspect that he possessed rival In one
who was, however mentally superior. 50 far
socially inferior to himself and to the wo-
man he loved.
That a man who was going to receive a
stipend as teacher in German univers-
ity could lift his eyes to Veronica Larani-
gra would have seemed wholly impossible
to one who had been reared in patrician
and conservative tenets He never noticed
the fires which slumbered in the cold,
wide-open eyes of his friend and monitor.
He never observed how frequently Damer
| watched him and her when they were to-
gethsr, listened from afar to their CONVEX
sation. and invariably interrupted them at
any moment when their words verged on
more tender or familiar themes He was
himself tenderly, passionately. Economically
enamored; his temper was full of a ro-
nance to which he could not often give
adequate expression; his love for her had
he was panied and chafed by the manner in
which she avoided the definite declaration
of it, but he did not for moment trace 1t
to its right cause.-The magnetic influence
which Damer had upon her, the hesitation
which was given her by vague hypnotic
suggestion. If any looker-on had warned
him he would have laughed and said that
days of magic were past
Damer read the young mans heart like
an open book, and he knew that it was
wholly filled with the image Of Veronica.
He had never liked Andreis; he had no
| liking for youth or for physical beauty, or
for kindness and sweetness and simplicity
of character. Such qualities were not in
tune with him; they were no more to him
than the soft, thick fur of the cat in his
laboratory, which he stripped off her body
| that he might lay bare her spinal cord; the
pretty, warm skin was nothing to science
He had saved the life of Andreis because
| 1t had interested him and recompensed him
| to do so; he had travelled with him for a
year because 1t suited him financially to
| do so; but he had never liked him, he had
never been touched by any one Of the many
generous and delicate acts Of the young
man, nor by the trust which the mother
I,fA INDY n1io11v in or laf-
! tiers to himself. Where jealousy sits on the
! threshold of the soul. goodness and kind
| ness and faith knock in vain for admit
lance Envy is hatred in embryo and only
waits in the womb Of time for birth.
One day Veronica asked him to go and
see an old servant Of the Laranigra house.
| hold who was very i'll and in hospital: they
! had begged him not to go to the hospital,
| but he had wished to do SO, and had been
| allowed to fulfill his wish. Damer went to
see him. He found the man at deaths
| door with cancer Of the food and air pas
| sages.