Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-21

| fair should nave passed, when there shaGld be left in its stead only shame lessness, hardihood, vice, weariness,. those who found the prettiest jest in her now would be the first to cast aside with an oath the charred, wrecked rocket stick of life from | which no golden, careless stream of many colored fires of coquette caprices would rise and enehant them then.
 ''Who is it that sent theseY" asked Leon Ramon later on as his hands still wandered among the flowers. For the | the hours of quietude had calmed him.
 Cecil told him again.
 'What does Cigarette know of her." he pursued.
 Nothing, except, believe, she knew 1 that Mime. Corona accepted my. chess carvings"
 "Ah, I thought the little one was jeal- ous, Victor"
 Jealous? Pshaw! Of whomr'
 "Of any one you admire, especially of this grande dame"
 Absurd" said Cecil, with a sense of annoyance. Cigarette is far too bold little trooper to have any thoughts of those follies, and as for this grande dame, as you call her, I shall in every likelihood never see her again unless when the word is given to carry swords or 1ances' at tEe generals sa- lute, where she reins her horse beside M. le MarechaPs at review, as have | done this morning"
 l The keen ear of the sick man caught the infection of an impasaence, of a modification, in the tone that the | speaker himself was unconscious of. Cigarette is right" said Ramon, with a slight smile. ''Your heart is with your old order. Well, keep your his | tory as you have always done, if you will. What my friend was matters 1 nothing. I know well what he is and | how true a friend. As for miladi, she l will be best out of your path, Victor. l Women! God, they are so fatal! Do you know what brought me here? No? As little as I know what brought you, l though we have been close comrades all these years. Well, 1t was she! I | was an artist. had no money, had few friends, but I had youth, had | ambition, had, I think, genius till she killed it. I loved my art with a great love, and I was happy. Happy-until she looked at me- he pursued, while his voice grew in feverish haste over the words. "Why would she not let me be? She had them all in her gold en nets-nobles and princes and poets and soldiers; she swept them in l far and wide. She had her empire. | Why must she seek out man who had but his art and his youth and steal these? It was the first year touched triumph that I saw her. They began for the first time to speak of me. It was the little painting of Cigarette as child of the army that did it. An, God, I thought myself already so fa- nous! Well, she sent for me to take her picture, and I went. I went, and I | painted her as C1eopatra-by her wish. An, it was face for Cleopatra, the eyes that burn your youth dead, the l lips that kiss your honor blindi l Through month on month my picture grew, and my passion grew with it, famed by her hand. She knew that never would T man paint her beauty like one who gave his soul for the | price of success. Then came my re ward. When the picture was done, her | fancy had changed. A light scorn, a careless laugh, a touch of her fan on my cheek. Could I not understand? {? Was I still such child? Must I be broken more harshly in to learn to give place? That was all, and at last her lackey pushed me back with his wand from her gates! She had killed | me- She had struck my genius dead. | What of that? She had her beauty | eternal in the picture she needed, and l the whole city rang with her lovelinees as they looked on my work. I have never painted again. I came here. What of that2 An artist the legs, | then, the world did not care. A life l the less soon, she will not care eitherw Then as the words ended a great wave. of blood beat back his breath and burst from the pent up torture of his striving lungs and stained red the dark and sill1en masses of his beard. His comrade held him upward in his arms and shouted loud for help. The great luminous eyes of the French soldier 1 looked up at him through their mist with the deep, fond gratitude that DedIuS III tue eyes Ol d uOS dS It. ufUpS down to die, knowing one touch and one voice to the last.
 ssYou do not forsake," he murmured brokenly, while his voice ebbed faint | ly away as the stream of his life flowed faster and faster out. Ut is over now --so best! If only I could have seen France once more-France''- Then a deep sigh quivered through his lips, his hand strove to close on the hand of his comrade, and his head fell, resting on the flushed blossoms of the rose buds of Provence.
 He was dead.
 
 An hour later Cecil left the hospital, seeing and hearing nothing of the gay riot of the town about him, though the folds of many colored silk and bunting fiuttered across the narrow Moorish streets, and the whole of the populace was swarming through them with the vivacious enjoyment of Paris mingling with the stately picturesque life of Arab habit and custom. In Leon Ra- mon he had found aan whom he had loved and who had loved him. And now that the one lay dead a heavy,