The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-09-08
.SQID AND JEALOUS"
ny WILLIAM

en- tired. You are getting old and
jealous. Eh bien, if you want a d.
yorce, seek it as soon as you pleasel'
And, having fired this parting shot,
she banged the boudoir door after her
departing husband, who few seconds
later slammed the hall one in reply.
Felicite Deforges listened until the
angry reverberations had died away,
andthen, catching sight Of Berpretty
face in the mirror opposite, shook her
spirited little head wickedly at the re-
Election, and, ringing for her maid, at
once proceeded to don an exquisite
CONNECTION she was to wear to the Skip
pingtons' garden party that same
afternoon, the toilet being the remote,
the party the approximate cause Of
the quarrel which had just terminal
ed, for M. Deforges didnot approve Of
the Skppington connection, the eld-
est son Of that distinguished house
having more than once expressed en-
phatic admiration for madame.
Deforges walked straight on
through the crowded streets withbent
head and muttering lips, his hands
thrust deep into his pockets, two per-
pendicular lines showing under the
brim Of the soft hat pulled over his
brows.
At the street corner he encountered
a tram car; the color told him that it
went toward Hampstead. He got up,
not because he had any particular
visit to pay in that direction, but be-
cause Hampstead meant the country,
andM. Deforges wagin a mood to COM
mune with nature.
Suddenly, it seemed, he found him
self at the foot of the famous hill.
The place did not appear so amusing
as when he and his wife first saw it one
April Sunday two years ago, and had
climbed to the heath, pointing out to
each other the tender green of the
young elm leaves beside a ~conventicle
pouring forth its wooden-faced con
gregation, and caught in the air faint
suggestions of lilac from invisible
gardens, and saw daffodils abloom in
nursery beds.
How happy they had beer, she with
her rounded arm within his, and her
weight pressing upon it intermittent
~ in mock fatigue, her shoulder nest
ling against his in the very eyes ofthe
starched Sunday world. For was she
not his wife, mon Dieu, andWere they
not only three weeks married?
And now, that morning, she had
told him he was old. "Is one old at
36?" he asked himself, breathlessly.
Furthermore, on that spring day, two.
years back, he had thought quite nat
urally Of climbing the hill, now he
thought as naturally Of permitting
himself to be carried up.
10 Danish this reflection he got
down at the next hating place and
sought the heath on foot.
Once or twice he paused to look
over the black-painted fence boards
inclosing trim lawns where English
maids were playing. But through it
all one cruel sentence kept ringing in
his ear: ''You are getting old" and,
though his heart said "No," his brain
said eyes"
At a corner of one of the long, mar
row paths which radiated intermip-
ably in every side, he suddenly en-
countered a girl advancing rapidly
from an opposite direction. So swift
ly did she come that he almost iostled
her; lifting his hat, he stood aside,
and, when she had taken a few
steps, looked back. She had done the
same.
Their eyes met; he smiled. She
gazed at him slOWlyWithout any sug-
gestion Of coquetry or indignation;
and.then passed on.
Well, he had done so, and had re-
ceived his verdict. He could not have
known that just as she turned she had
caught the CLINT Of spectacles over a
garden railing, where an elderly
neighbor Of gossiping habit was OBJ
serving the incident.
The fingers Of his left hand, still in
his pocket, encountered a small pen
Cil-ike object. He drew it forth in
curiously. All, yes, it was a stray car
tridgeAone Of the so he had pur-
cbased.a week before, for the revolver
Feioite had induced him to buy her
nerves having been Jared owing to a
burglary in the neighborhOod.
He saw the revolver itself quite dis
tinctly now in the upper drawer Of a
writing table, placed absurdly by his
20 rnr~ Az m3r1nm of woov,