Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-02
CHAPTER T.

To maintain that a mans character is
determined for good or Ill by the circum-
stances chance throws in his way, by the
gay or sorry tricks fate plays him, has
ever seemed to me a folly. Yet so Won
Altdorf maintained most strenuously as we
sat. last evening and late into the night,
on the terrasse of one of those thronged
and gayly lighted cafes along the old Boule-
yard st. Michel-"La Source it Was-and
talked of the great game that we had tried
TO play, long since, and of how the game
was taken out of our hands by greater
hands and played to so strange an end.
ELSE why" demanded Won Altdorf pur-
suing his argument, why did Denis NAL
lory happen into the Cafe d'Alencon on that
particular evening of all eveningse Why
did he not pass by and-end his days in the
grave of a drunkard and blackguard? How
else did he grow into a nobility and great
ness that shamed all, but by force of
the circumstances into which he fell in
those following weeks? Answer me that"
He was led said I firmly. Into the
cafe, that night, by something greater than
chance. my friend something beyond our
philosophy. And he was given US to do
our work by no mere happening. Moreover,
IL circumstances make man, why then
didn't Denis Mallory prove, later on,
6ASatcA DASiShS tHdl Olie likes 10 tllIlh
later, when circumstances made it posi-
bic for him and chance made it easy? An
Swer that"
But Won Altdorf shook his gray head and
frowned out into the hustle and hurry of
the boulevard where the fiacres dashed UP
and down loaded with students and cocottes
and stream tram painted noisily up the
hill
1t was the first time we had met since
those days two years ago-two years did
say? By my faith Ii seems but two weeks
1 can see their faces. hear their voices
those players of great game. Mr.. NAL
lory's and Sir Gavin's and Won Altdorf's
and the prince 8, and perhaps more vividly
more intimately than ALL the face and
voice of the unhappy lady whose fate had
seemed to lie in hands.
1t was our first meeting and we had much
to say to each other. Won Altdorf had
come on to Paris from Vienna on a private
mission of the emperor whom he now
serves, and l had run across from London
to meet him
1t pleased our within, once dinner was
over, to cross the river to the old quarter
again. to revisit the gay boulevard with
its trees and its cafes and its throngs of
grotesquey CARRIED students. 1t changes
little as time goes
1t was good to see him. to clasp his hand
once more. TO talk long and fully of those
matters that neither of may ever for
get, but / not altogether sure that 1
am glad we met There was a difference,
certain Simethlng or restraint, failure
to see things quite from the same view
point Won Altdorfs mind was full of his
present business. of the secrets and policies
OF the court OF Vienna. The present and
the future pressed insistently upon him and
he turned with certain effort, a stiffness,
to look backward.
AS for me, why 1 suppose I was most
keenly occupied with my own little affairs
and my own future. The two years had
Carried us apart, filmed the windows of
memory. deadened ever so slightly the
keenness of those passions that once were
all our life.
And so 1t has. occurred to me since I
babe farewell to Won Altdorf and saw him
on again to his work In the east, to set
down as faithfully as I may, while yet my
memory 10 fresh and strong. the story of
the man who won cur love and admiration