The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-12-05
X THE DEFENSE X
Copyright, 1901, by Authors Syndicate
BY w. B. BARRETT.


IT WAS showing when Eleanor re-
turned from the private view. The
air was bitter, the wind wintry. She
was glad to reenter the coziness of her
silent studio, its light, its warmth; to
see the CHEEKY welcome of the flicker
ing gas leg which in her bedchamber
adjoining initiated in its humble ashes
tos way the cordial greeting of pine.
Burson, good chap, had left her at the
studio door, though he had looked
longingly at the comfort within, and
she knew he would have stayed if she
had asked him more cordially.
Still, she had asked him. Her con-
science must have been clear on the
score of gentle spitality-else why
should she so petulantly have flung
her sealskin coat across an easel and
sunk listlessly into a Morris chair
which commanded at once the speak
ing study for canvas before it and a
view through the archway of the blink
ing asbestos.
"He needn't have looked so wistful,"
she murmured, discontentedly. 81 did
ask him to come in and get warm. 1
said: Perhaps it's too late, but you
can toast yourself a minute before
you start for the north side, if you
want to- Ungracious? Well, why does
he bother me? Didn't he have me
the whole evening, and to supper, too
Isn't that enough?
'And how he praised my picture!
How all of them did, indeed. They
were awfully good, and yet"
She rose restlessly and walked up
and down as a man might, Bohemian
that she was, pausing at last before
the easel in the semi-darkness.
"And yet" she went on, in passion
ate multitone which still was little
more than whisper after all, "what
good is it all? What do I care whe ether
they praise or damn? What do I care
whether my work is good or i'll? What
are wreaths and coronets when ones
heart is hungry for love, and love is
fled away, driven by FOOLS laugh
OH"
And now, in a storm of bitterness, she
sank shudderingly upon the rug be-
meath her, her hands upon her eyes,
and flow of tears wet them with their
kindly solace.
She saw again, in fancy, the gay
crowding of the ''view." A galaxy of
beauty, gowned in the seasons bril-
Eancy of colcr, wed with the art which
'decked the walls. There had been a
froufrou of rich stuffs, tinkle of
well-bred merriment, a hum of con-
ventional compliment. Across it all,
biotting out the lights, the canvases,
hushing the gayety, rose again his face.
as she had seen it that afternoon,
across vista of other faces, pale, i'm
mobile, seeming to have suffered, seem
ing still to suffer, bearing a cross and
frozen into a grim and enduring 81
lence. She had looked long upon that
face, until her own color had deserted
cheek and lip and fled back to the tu-
multi of her fast-beating heart. Then
she had beckoned the faithful Burson
and precipitately left the gallery. And
now?
Yes, now, what? Harold was back,
y
to her; what could it be? She who ha d
in ashes strewn her heart and hooded
her face in sackcloth because one little
"No" had changed her life and his.
what was there now to do to set it
right?
Not upon Haunting sleeve can a
woman weave her heart. She had said
emo - and ha bod II
come again, but her "No" must still be
vocal and sing in her ears its cruel
harshness. She had cast him away. her
pearl of men; it was to art she would
be wed, she had said, as if disdaining
tingling human pulses and caressing
arms; to art, cold, lofty, high, exalted
and eXa~.i@g art. She had aspired to be
lifted up-and the little god had with
the croOk;ng of his tiny, remorseless
finger cast her down and sown BRAN
bles where his arrow festered.
Three years! Gods! How she had
striven to ease the pain which cut her
almost before Harold was beyond the
sea. And success had come, success
undOubtful; a noble success, laureled
and acclaimed. The fires of genius
burned within her soul and lent I'M
pulse to her heaven-gifted brush, the
critics said. To-day had been the hour
of triumph for her art. The salons
first prize decked her masterpiece. A
host of friends and connoisseurs pre-
dicted for her future wherein fame
and luxury waited at her bidding-and
then came before her that stern white