The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-16


The porter at Blessingham chambers
had a hanson at the door, and they got
into it quickly and drove off-two men
who had lived together for ten years
and knew each other well enough to 90
without conversation on trivial topics.
After a minute or two, however, one
of them became unusually talkauVe'
Saw an old flame of yours today,
Dick
so did L"
THE deuce you did! The vennekers
used TO know her, didn't they? L don't
suppose they can raise dinner party
in the slack season without asking all
their friends. You'll meet her there to-
night"
"I shall"
Dick Templar," said his friend,
''you re a secretive devil! Two years
ago you worried me with all your Ia
mentations over the girl till I got sick
of her name. Each time you proposed
to her you told me what you said and
what she said when she refused you;
and now she comes to London as the
wife OF the other fellow, and you slip
off to tea with her, instead of coming
to the club to play whist-you know
that is where you were, so don't deny
iti-aud You say not a blessed word
about it. Not even to me. May L ask
what is the difference between your feel
feelings for Mrs.-Mrs. Rose"
"O'Prien; husbands a captain in an
Irish regiment. He'd need to be with
such a name!' grunted Dick Templar.
in Africa
''Fhew! Poor devil! And you told me
nothing about it! What makes the diff
ference?-for you are different"
Don't be a goat!" answered Dick.
I'm not different. There was moth
ing to tell-thats all. I've called on
her twice, and she remembers that she
liked me, rather, and-she is glad to
see some one she knows and can talk to
she quite forgets how I loved her.
She will never understand how I love
her still don't mind telling you all
this, old chap-aIl she talks about and
thinks about is her husband. It's What
Pat says and what Pat does and
what Pat thinks about everything, and
she locks at his photograph all the time
if you can't get her with her back to
it. She's safe enough; and so am I, for
that matter. I feel just the same-only
different, you know"
thine heals"
Thine makes the wound tester I love
her more than ever. 1 hate meeting her,
but I'm SO fond of her 1 can't even hate
her husband when she talks about him;
I believe Id bring him back to her if
I could, just TO make her happier"
Poor old Dick! What good chap
you are! Here's my dinner waiting for
me, and a brOugham in front of the
door, so I'm not late"
He got out, and Dick Temp!ar opened
the little trapdoor in the roof and
shouted to the cabman to drive fast.
The Vennekers live somewhere north
of the Marylebone Road, in a quiet ter
race of big houses. There was no car
riage at their door. A hanson was the
oil
off, with the man in the dickey eXamn-
ing the fare that had just been paid
him as IL he were dissatisfied with the
quality of the coins. Dick wondered
Mrs. O'Brien had driven alone in the
cab in front of him all the way from
Elbury street, paid his fare and jumped
out
A small boy had stayed up with a bum
die of evening papers, but trade was
slack and he dashed forward, apparent
ly with the fOrlorn hope that something
might be gained by helping an able
bodied gentleman late for dinner 10
alight from a hansome cab Dick Temp
lar pushed him on one side, ran up the
~ Bteps and rang the bell.
The footman who should have opened
bhe door must have been carrying in the
Boup, for TO one came for fully a minute.
Dick tapped his foot impatiently on the
white doorstep and scowled at the small
boy half hidden behind an orange con-
tents bill
"Killed and Wounded at Battersberg,
Official List" was the most prominent
item of news promised by the bill
Dick tried in vain to remember what II
was that had happened some days before
at Battersberg-whe the Beers had
captured a convoy or saved their own
guns and decamped, and, as no one came
to the door he held out a penny to the
small boy and rang again.
The Official List was plain enough IN
the Stop-Press kilograms; Dick had found
it before the footman opened the door.
Eyes, sir?' said the man aloud, to at
tract the attention of the gentleman.
Dick was keeping a dinner party of ts;iis
twenty people waiting in the drawing
room while he read the newspaper
Officer killed: Capt G. c. OBrieu
ublin Fusiliers." That was what he had
read; one or two other names followed
but he did not see them. Mechanically
he folded the paper and thrust it deep
into the pocket of the overcOat whit h
the foOtman was taking from him as rap
idly as he could.
you are late, and I have had no one
to bring me down stairsr' said voice
that brought Dick to himself with a
start They had resolved to go in TO
dinner without him, and he had been
standing in the hall staring at them in
a dazed way, almost without &c xnnw.-
edging his hosts nod, as they all fled
by until Mrs. O'Brien came past alone.
She slipped her arm into his, and he
went in, vaguely wondering what il was
he had to do with the widow of a man
forty-eight hours dead prattling beside
him about the heat and the flowers twit-
ting him with trivilalities as to what
might have been made him so late, and
rallyin9 him on his duilness.
c1rQr l. cd To nj.
der" she said, that makes me accus-
toned to punctuality. Pat Is never Late
for anything"
1t was the first time she had mention
ed her husband by name that evening,
and he caught at the idea like a drown
ing man at a life boat.
"While are all Irishmen christened
Patrick?' he asked, going at the point n
a roundabout way, instinctively.
But they aren't" she exclaimed Ny
husbands name is George. He was chris
tened George Carruthers, only Pat suits
him so much better. You will say so
when you see him.
Dick could see him in his minds eve,
with couple of soldiers heaping dry
sand over him in a shallow grave, and
hiring party returning to camp after
their last duty. He even wondered
vaguely whether they marched back with
arms reversed, and what arms reversed
might precisely mean. He had read of
soldiers funerals in newspapers.
You really ought to see him." she went
on, and, having once got upon the topic,
talked Of the husband whom she had
married six months before for the rest of
dinner time, telling her hostess an anec-
dote Of him across the man who sat be-
tween them. Her doing so gave Dick an
opportunity to think, and possible soIu-
tons Of the question what was to han