The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1901-07-24


( and lav passion grew ri III Ii,
famed by her hand. she knew that
s never would u man paint her beauty
& Ike one Mo gave his soul for the
price OF success hen came my re-
ward. When the picture was done, her
fancy had changed A light scorra. u
careless laugh. touch of her FAN on
cheek Gould not understand
Was still such d child Must be
broken more harshIy lii to learn to
give place. That was all. and at last
her iackey pushed me back with his
wand from her gates! She had killed
me. She had struck my genius dead
hat Of that She had her beauty
eternal in the picture she needed. and
| the whole city rang with her lovelinees
as they looked on my work have
never painted again came here.
What of that? An artist the less,
then. the world did not care. A life
the less soon. she will not care either!''
| Then as the words ended 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 silken masses OF his beard. His
conrade held him upward in his arms
! and shouted loud for help. The great
luminous eyes of the French soldier
looked up at him through their mist
| with the deep. fond gratitude that
beams in the eyes of a dog as it drops
down to die, knowing one touch and
one voice to the last
You do not forsake'' he mufmured
brokenly, while his voice ebbed faint
| IL aWay as the stream of his life flowed
faster and faster out. 1T is over now.
so best! If only could have seen
| France once more France Then a
deep sigh quiyered 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.
2 SO
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
futtered across the narrow Moorish
streets. and the whole of the populace
was swarming through them with the
vfvacious enjoyment of Paris mingling
with the stately picturesque life Of
Arab habit and custom. In Leon Ra-
mon he had found man whom heshad
loved and who had loved him. And
now that the one lay dead heavy,
weary sense of loneliness rested on the
other. Passing one of the cafes, ia
vorite resort of the officers of his own
regiment, he. saw Cigarette I Her tunic
skirt was full Of bonbons and crackers
that she was finging down among the
crowd while she sang. stopping every
now and then to exchange some pas.
sage of wit with them that made her
hearers scream with, laughter, while
behind her was throng Of young Of
Scers drinking champagne, eating ices
and smoking, echoing her songs and
her satires with enthusiastic voices
and stamps of their spurred boot heels.
AS he glanced upward she looked liter
ally in a blaze Of lulninance, and the.
wild, mellow tones Of her voice ringing
out sounded like a moekery of that dy-
ing bed beside which they had both so
late stood together.
She has the playfulness of the
young leopard, and the cruelty he
thought, with sense Of disgust, for
getting that she did not know what
he knew and that if Cigarette had
waited to laugh until death had passed
by she would have never laughed all
her life through in the battalions of
Africa
She saw him as he went beneath
her balcony. and she sang all the
louder, she flung her sWeetmeat mis-
siles with the reckless force of a
Roman carnivalist, she launched bolts
of tenfold more audacious raillery at
the delighted mob below. Cigarette
was good soldier when she was
wounded; she wound her scarf round
the nerve that ached and only laughed
the gayer.
And he did her that injustice which
the best among us are apt to do to
those whom we do not feel interest
enough in to study with that closeness
which can alone give comprehension
OF the intricate and complex rebns, so
family sketched, SO marvelously in
volyed. of human nature
He thought her little leopard in
her vivacious play and her Unborn
blood hirstiness. Well, the little Loop
ard OF France played reckless,g
enough that evening. Algiers was en-