The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-01-05


hair, and even the lock of her high
square shoulders as she swayed them
slightly to the rhythm of the music.
The very song she was singing reyolted
lin:
20. think not can forget you;
I could not though would
see you IA ALL around me.
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 bad
riser from the sofa, and was standing
at the window, wlistling under his
breath as he looked out over the Straits
of Gi5raltar-out 10 that blnish-gray
coast line of Africa where lived the
girl OF his heart.
''Dody." said the singer in cooling
voice. which fell oddly from her hard,
thin lips, you're not listening to me.
You're really getting too iiorrid. And
you used to love this song"
The piano stopped abruptly. In the
small drayving-room of the villa on the
road to Europa Point there was no
sound but the interrogative, agitated
licking 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 Eardiey 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 beat! 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
hear Of this old ENHANCEMENT, it would
TO hard with his chances. He remem-
bered her pronounced opinions, her
keen sense OF humor. and he asked
himself if she would ever consent TO
enter the lists as a rival to Mrs. Lead
am? And that the woman at the
piano would not give him up without
protestant 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 ne had
met Betty Marlowe, ne could hardly
remember now. He had an indistinct
recollection of himself as a callcw
Subaitern 81 Portsmouth, and of a GER
tain villa near Southsea, with pine
wood in the garden, and of a woman Of
thirty or SD who had seemed in every
way desirable to him then. But was
this the same Rose LeadaIn, he asked
himself wonderingly, this woman with
the touched-up lips and the ridiculous
feve-songs, on whose maCtelpiece the
officers of two regiments made q some
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 lie, he asked himself, with
\ groan, to have this horrible milestone
round his neck for good and always?
Was he never to be free-never to out
live his boyish folly. never to have done
with the past?
Over yonder lay Targiers. with it's
low, white-plastered houses rising in
tiers MP she hill above the barbor; its
Casbah. its mosque, its steep. cobbled
streets, its 6onkeys, dogs, babies, fruit
sellers, its crimson shod women, its
strings of laden cameis and its gardens
full of prickly pears. He could see it
in his minds eye cow, as he stood in
the meager, Britisb-looking drawing
room; remembered, DO q, nicely, 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 impairment nose, of
whom he had lately grown immoderate-
ly fond, but OF whose feelings towards
himself he had been left in a state of
soul-torturiug indecisiou. 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. f.
He was accustomed 10 see her often, !
for Tangiers counts among its attrac-
tions as a winter residence its proxiu1, /!
ity to our Key to the Mediterranean"
,SieD stationed at Gibraltar cross the /
straits for pig sticking in Morocco:
ladies wintering in Tangiers go over
TO inspect tue galleries" to dance on
the ironclsds in the i,arbor, or to loiter
In tire Alameda on the Rock" Lady
Narlowe, il addition, had brother
high in command at Gibraltar, so that
mother and daughter were seen st most
of the big military entertainments, and
Dick was forced to own that Betty had
weL-nigh the whole garrison to choose
from. For the past week or two. every
one had been talking CT the big masked /
ball which the Mariowe s wee 20 give 4
IN 1TveirrE night. AZ UIoraISar mao /.
been invited. but among the prospec-
i've guests Mrs. Lesdam had not been
Included. This omission was not. as
lhe supposed. End asserted with some
what unnecessary loudness. due TO /
jealousy on the psrt Of Miss Mariowe, 4
who, indeed. did not know Mrs. Lead /
I'M when she saw her, but from the 1
fact that Lady Marlowe, who, ii spite /
pf her short-sight and her distract
manners, knew everything and every /
body, chose to ignore the lady's ex- /
|stepce.. Yet Mrs. Leadam. had ,d.ter-