The San Francisco call., 1904-03-06

gaze rest on this red heart Of living
coal, while his pipe smoke lay between
1t and his face in delicate layers.
His thoughts slipped back over child
ish memories to his first ones. when he
had lived a French boys life with his
mother in Paris.
He remembered her far back in the
days when he sat on her knee and was
read to out Of fairy books. She had
been very pretty then and very happy,
and had always talked English with
him while every one else spoke French.
She had been an English woman, an ac-
tress Of beauty and promise, who in
the zenith of her popularity had made
what the world called a fine marriage
with a rich Venezuelan, who lived in
Paris. The stories of Essex's doubtful
paternity were false. Rose Barry
Rose Essex, on the stage-had been the
lawful wife Of Antonio Perez, and for
ten years was the happy wife as well.
They were very prosperous in those
days. Barry had gone to the lycee all
week and come back every Friday to
the beautiful apartment In the Rue de
Ponthieu. There were lovely spring
Sundays when they drove in the Bois
and sometimes got out OF the carriage
and walked down the sun-ffecked allees
under the budding trees. And there
were even lovelier winter Sundays when
they loitered along the boulevards In
the crisp, clear cold, with the sky
showing leaden gray through the bar
ring Of black boughs, and when they
came home to a parlor lit with fire and
lamplight and had oranges and hard
green grapes after dinner.
He had loved his pretty mother de-
votedly in those happy days, but for
his saturnine dark-visaged father he
had only a sentiment Of uneasy fear.
He was twelve, when at his mothers
request he was sent to England to
school. He could remember, looking
back afterward, that his mother had
not been so pretty or so happy then.
When he came home from school for
vacations she was living at Versailles
In a little house that presented a Sc
cret non-committal front to the stony
street, but that in the back had de-
Mghtful garden full of miniature foun-
tains and houses and grottoes
From the wall he could see the messy
trees and stretches of n-bathed
sward OF the Trianon. His father was
not always there when he came. One
Easter vacation he was not there at all.
and when he had asked his mother why
she had burst into sudden terrible tears
that frightened him.
During the long summer holidays
after that Antonio Perez was only
there once over a Sunday. Then he did
not come again, and Barry was glad,
for he had never cared for his father.
He passed delightful days in the Tria-
non Park with his mother, who was
very silent and had gray hair on her
temples. She walked beside him with
a slow step, dragging her rich lace
skirts and with her parasol hanging in
dolently over her shoulder. 1t pleased
him to see that many people looked at
her, but she took no notice Of them.
When Barry went back to England to
school that year he began to feel that
he knew what was coming. 1t came the
next vacation. His mother had not
dared to tell him by letter. Her hus-
band had deserted her and disappeared,
leaving her with q few thousand francs
in the bank and not a friend.
After that there were three misera-
BILE years when they lived in a little
apartment on the Rue de Sevres, up
four flights of stairs with bonne a
tout faire. His mother had had to
conquer the extravagant habits of a
lifetime, and she did 1t Ill. During the
last year Of her life the sale of her
jewels kept them. Barry was eighteen
when she died. and those long last
days when she lay on the sofa in the
remnants Of the rich and splendid
clothes she found 1t so hard to do with
out were burned into his memory for
ever.
Their furniture-some Of which was
rare and handsome-brought them a
few hundred francs, and on this he
lived for another year, ekng out his
substance with his first tentative at
tempt at journalism. When he was
twenty-one he received a legal notice
that his father had died in Venezuela,
leaving him all he possessed, which,
debts paid and the estate settled,
amounted to about $4,000
This might have been a fortune to the
youth, but the bitter bread he had
eaten had soured the best in him. He
took his legacy and resolved to taste
of the Joy of life. For several years he
lived on the crest of the wave, now
and then diverting himself with jour
nalism, the only profession that at
tracted him and one in which his tall
ents were readily recognized. He saw
much of the world and its ways, living
in many cities and among many peo-
pies. He tried to cut himself off from
the past, adopting, after his mothers
death, her old stage name of Essex.
Then, his money spent, there had
been dark interval Of bad luck and
dependency, when Barry Essex, the
brilliant amateur journalist, had fallen
out of the ranks of people that are seen
and talked about. Without means, he
sank to the level of a battered and
out-at-elbows Bohemian. There was a
year or two when he swung between
London and Paris, making money as
he could, and not always frequenting
creditable company. Then the tide
of change struck him and he went
to New York worked there successfully
till once again the Wanderlust carried
him farther afield.
He had now arrived at the crucial
point Of his career. In his vagabond