Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-09

that such marriage gave her, and she
had made the most splendid success of 1t.
She had done her duty. too. as a wife, had
given him two sons. and filled her place
superbly. But love had never really come
to her; that. by no fault of hers. had APP
parently been left out of her emotional
possibilities, and since she was convinced
that that omission was not her fault, she
did not worry about 1t. But today, though
she did not worry, she could not help WON
dering about certain time long past in
her life. 1t was conceivable that that time
long past would begin to be factor Of
her life in the immediate future, and as
such it occupied her today. now that the
staircase and her speech at the industrial
sale were off her mind, somewhat insist
emily. There was no mystery about it all,
and nothing whatever to fear either in the
past or the future. But certain dim posi-
bilities interested her.
Count Villars had just arrived in Eng
land, having at an extraordinarily early
age, for he could not yet be forty, been
appointed Hungarian ambassador to the
court of ST. James, and there were quite
a number of people resident in that par
tsh who remembered very distinctly how
desperately he had fallen in love with
Lady Thurso twelve years ago, when she
had first come out, and, as her mother ex-
pressed 1t, taken 1.-The shine" out of the
rest of the girls of the year. Then, SO the
world still remembered, rather perplex1ng
events had happened in rapid succession.
Her engagement to Count Vfllars had been
announced, but hardly had that happened
when it was contradicted, young Vhlars,
then Junior secretary In the embassy OF
which he was now the head. had been
transferred elsewhere, and Immediately
afterward Lily Etheridge's engagement to
her present husband took place and was
followed before the year was out by her
marriage For Mrs. Etheridge had always
meant that her daughter should marry
Lord Stratton as he then was, and II any
body thought that her plans were going to
'be interfered with by any volcanic young
lrn1 hon 6cny
who had not a penny of his own and was
half dozen lives removed from the. own
ership of: Villars' Chose lives certainly
made lot of difference), she would show
him his mistake. There were, in fact, many
who thought so, but their mistake had
duly been demonstrated to them when Lily
Etheridge so soon after became Lady
Stratton. 1t had been supposed. however,
that Mrs. Etheridge had experienced a GER
tain difficulty in showing her daughter her
mistake in believing that she. having
actually told Rudolph Villars that she
would marry him. was going to do so, but
that, toe, had been done.
Rudolf Villars, in this long interval OF
twelve years, had done everything except
marry, and Fortune had clearly declared
herself to be his parent His brilliant gifts
had reaped their reward. relations neither
near nor dear had died, and while not yet
forty he was next in succession to the
large principality of Villars, and amba ssa-
dor to the English court. To the world at
large the situation which just now was
rather largely discussed had elements of
interest; ii was known, Of course, that Lily
Thurso and her husband were not roman
tica1ly attached to each other; 1t was con-
jectured that since Count Villars had re-
manned single he was still Economically at
tached to her, and 1t was impossible not
to help wondering whether at last Lady
Thurso would show signs of being at
tached to anybody. To the world she was,
in one aspect, in spite Of her cachet. her
briliance, her charm. a somewhat irritat-
to- hot lfv,nS Of hoo
belonged to nobody; she did not care for
her husband. but she cared for nobody else
And SO many men had been wildly devoted
to her, and none had had a single particle
of success. She was not shocked at their
declarations of love; had she been shocked
her attitude would at any rate have been
a moral and an Ineligible one. But she
merely laughed at them, and told them not
to be silly. If they persisted she yawned.
She forgot all about 1t. too. week after
ward. even If they had made her yawn very
much; asked them to the house just as
usual, and was as friendly as possible.
Lily Thurso. as will have been gathered,
did her duty in the state of life to which
her mother. in the main, had called her.
with extraordinary fullness. She had
grasped as soon as she married almost the
sort of life that her position entailed if
she was to fill it adequately and with any
credit to herself. and with all her splendid
energies of body and mind she lived up to
a really high ideal Of it. Her time, her
talents, her money were always at the
service Of any scheme which she believed
to be one which should be supported by
those in her position, and she brought to
the task not the bare sense Of duty only.
but a most warm hearted kindness. The
sense of duty alone is a barren road to
tread, but her kindness. her interest In
break out into flowers. She genuinely
cared for the causes to which she so de-
voted herself; she wanted everybody to
have a good time, and she knew that 1T was
- trAl affn hat hnr
good time herself. But this kindness
which pervaded her nature was the high
est motive she knew; she did everything
warmly but nothing passionately. because
1t seemed as If passion had been left out of
her nature. Yet sometimes, as this after
noon, she wondered whether that was alb
solutely the case; for though she had GER
tainly not felt passion in all the years of
her married life, she still remembered that
blissful perpleXity, which was half-bliss,
half-unhappiness, which she had known in
those few months which had eliminated
in her promise to marry Rudolf Vilars.
Whatever that feeling was, it had been a
bud only, and had never expanded into
flower, for swift maternal hands had, with
out any figure of speech, nipped it off. She
had been called a sentimental school girl
with such assurance that it had convinced
her for the time being. But today when
she knew that this evening the man who
had at any rate reused in her the senti-
mentality of a school girl would after this
long lapse Of years come. to her house
again, she wondered Though this was use
less emotional baggage) what she would
feel. She had not seen him since; probably
he was rather bald, rather stout, rather
Of the diplomatist type. which seemed to
her to be causelessly self-important. Very
likely, when his name was announced she
would shake hands with a stranger. She
almost hoped that this would prove to be
so. For she did not want to feel again that
trembling uncertainty that sense of I'M
known possibilities of overmastering emo
ton, that she had felt twelve years ago.
Her life was very full, she enjoyed it enor-
mously, she was happy. she was nearly
content. And she did not. as far as she
knew herself, wish to risk terrible agita-
ton and upheaval in order to be possibly
quite content She had seen love, in fact,
like distant lightning on the horizon; she
did not want the thunderstorm to come
closer.
Yet, yet-already in her, summer of life,
she sometimes asked herself, lis this all?'
1t seemed a sorry comedy; to be gifted with
so much and to be able to realize SO little
was a poor task for the appointed three
score years and ten of life. If she had been
really tempted to be what moralists called
wicked, that would have been something.
but she knew quite clearly and calmly that
she had never been tempted like that.
Frankly, she did not believe in God, in a
huge central force that was utterly good,