The Red Cloud chief., 1906-03-02

tween them. They held brief, earnest
conversations on the street or I'm cor
ners when they met at other peoples
houses. always speaking In voices too
low TO be overheard, and they exercised
a mysterious symbolism, somewhat in
the manner of fellow members OF
secret society. They had been OBJ
served TO communicate across crowded
rooms by lifted eyebrow, nod of head
or n surreptitious turn of the wrist,
so that those who observed them knew
that question had been asked and an.
swered.
1t was noticed also that there were
FIVE other initiates to this masonry
Eugene Madrlllon, the elder Cheno-
weth. General Trumble, Tappingham
Marsh and jefferson Bareaud. Thus
on the afternoon following Miss Bet
tvs Introduction to Rouen's favorite
sons and daughters Mr.. Carewe, driv-
ing down Main street, held up one
forefinger to Madrlllon as he saw the
young man turning in at the club.
Eugene nodded gravely and as he went
in, discovering Marsh, the general and
others listening to Mr.. Gray's eXplana.
ton Of his return from the river with
no fish, stealthlly held up one finger in
his turn. Trumble replied with a wink,
! Tappingham nodded, but Crailey
slightly shook his head. Marsh and the
general started with surprise and star
shake his head! If the signal had been
for church meeting they might have
understood.
Mr. Gray's conduct was surprising
two other people at about the same
time - Tom Vanrevel and Fanchon
Bareaud; the former by his sudden de-
votion to the law; the latter by his
sudden devotion to herself. In a breath
he became almost domestic charac-
ter.
Miss Bareaud was even happier than
she was astonshed - and she was
nightly astonished-to find her be-
trothed developing taste for her So
ciety alone. Formerly she had counted
upon the gayeties of her home to keep
told her tenderly he wished to have her
all to himself. This was not like him,
but FanchOn did not question.
The Bareaud house was the most
hospitable in Rouen. Mrs. Bareaud,
southerner, loving to persuade the Wis
itor that her home was his, not hers,
lived only for her art, which was that
Of the table. Mr. Bareaud at fifty had
| lived so well that he gave up walking.
which did not trouble him, but at sixty
he gave up dancing, which did trouble
him. His only hope, he declared, was
in Crailey Gray's promise to invent for
him q concave partner.
There was a thin, Quizzing shank of
son, Jefferson, who lived upon qui-
nine, ague and deviltry, and there were
the two daughters, FanchOn and Vir-
ginia. The latter was three years old
er than FanchOn, as dark as Fanchon
was fair, though not nearly so pretty,
a small, good natured, rOmping sprite
of q girl who had handed down the
heart and hand of Crailey Gray to her
sister with the best grace in the world.
For she had been the heroine of one OF
Mr.. Gray's half dozen or so most seri-
GUS affairs, and after a furious rivalry
with Mr.. Carewe the victory was gen
orally conceded to Crailey. His tri-
umph had been Of about fortnight s
duration when Fanchon returned from
st. Mary's, and with the advent Of the
younger sister the elder, who had de-
cided that Crailey was the incompara-
BILE she had dreamed of since infancy,
was generously allowed to discover
that he was not that vision; that she
had fallen in love with her own idea
OF him, whereas Fanchon cared only
that he be Crailey Gray.
To be in love with Crailey became
Fanchon's vocation She spent all her
time at It and produced blurred ef-
feet upon strangers. Nor was she
alone in suspectlng Mr.. Gray Of gen
ius. In the first place, he was so odd;
in the second, his poems were "already
attracting more than local attention"
as the Journal remarked generously,
for Crailey had ceased to present his
rhymes to that valuable paper. Aye,
Boston no less was his mart.
He was rather radical in his literary
preferences and hurt the elder ChenO.
weths feelings by laughing heartily at
some poems Of the late Lord Byron
offended many people by dsliking the
style of Sir Edward Bulwer and even
refused to admit that James Fenimore
Cooper was the greatest novelist that
ever lived. But these things were as
nothing compared with his unpatriotiC