Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1907-09-14
Lbe Giants @trenQtb
BY BASIL KING.
Copyrighted 1906, by Harper& Brothers
BY B A ISL KIN G.
Copyrighted, 1906, by Harper& Brothers.


Anne de Bretagne at Langeais, nor
with Jeanne dare at Chinon, nor
with Diane de Poitiers at Chenon-
ceau. They were back in the long,
red studio, piecing together the.events
of the past winter and tracing the
progress through which her mind had
come to submit itself to Roger Win
ships.
You seem to be In dream, dear"
her father had said to her once or
twice, and the statement fitted her.
1t was not waking life, these days
on the banks Of the Loire. The prf-
NAL emotions of love, ambition, and
hate found there that setting Of state
lily castle and broad champaign which
softens crime into adventure and pas
sion into romance The spell of the
long past mingled with the glamor of
the strange, new life into which she
felt herself entering. The memories
Of splendid, ardent generations fell
round her like rich tapestries, shut.
ting in the mysterious chambers Of
her heart. She made no effort to con-
front her problems or to smooth her
way. She was content. for the NOM
ent to move in her dream-the dream
in which love is still able to keep to
its defenceless paradise
With the return to town the thought
of the practical became more insis-
tent? The old life seemed to close
in so tenaciously about her that she
wondered how 1t would ever be posi-
BILE to get out of it, Even her dream
lost some of its reality in the stress
of giving and receiving invitations to
dinner. With all that she could not
avoid doing, 1t was the third day after
her return before she could find time
to steal into the Salon and see the
effect of her portrait as 1t hung. So
much had been said of 1t at social
gatherings and in the press that
even her family were reused to soma
degree of interest. When they began
planning party to go and see it
together. Paula seized the first occa-
sion to slip off alone. 1t was a wild
wet afternoon; there would be few
visitors; she was fairly sure Of hav-
ing the gallery to herself.
1t was as she expected. The great
rooms of the Grand Palais, deserted
except for the uniformed guardians,
and q solitary wandered here and
there, succeeded each other in long.
empty vistas of color Her own por-
trait held conspicuous place of
honor, and Of the rare visitors two or
three were generally stationed before
IT. She sat on a .divan in the centre
f the room, but too far off to chal
lenge comparison with the object Of
interest on the wall.
> AS she gazed about her she thought
with compassion Of the amount OF am
bition and toll that had gone to make
!, $>f hot =
. never reap an adequate reward, ambi
f1llment. Who would buy the hund
sea-views, of domestic scenes anC
studies Of still life, that hung about
her? They might have been those d
! last year. or of the year before, or o.
the year before that, or of any veal
since the Salon was founded. Wha
became of all the pictures that were
painted? What became of all the
: men and women who painted them
The feeling of pity which rose nov
: was new to her-new since she hat
watched Marah working away, da.
after day, at her little wooden NINA
tures-new especially since the ques
ton touched the man she loved.
He, too had sent his offspring her,
for the last five years. She hersel
had passed them by and never notice,
them The dumb things had appeale,
, to her for a glance. and she hal
J ignored them. Hundreds of thousand
had moved on in the same neglec
and Indifference. It seemed now lik
wound to her own pride. True, h
J had done some of them as commits
sions, some of them he had sold; bu
she knew that some, too, were still
roaming from one exhibition to ar
! other In the hope Of finding a pul
= chaser. So much effort and little o
T no recompense! Her father or Georg
/ would scoff at all that Winship coul
earn in year. Even for this thinf
l, which was counted success, he ha
received but eight thousand franc:
:, and for man of his standing was
$ be considered we'll paid. Eigh
thousand francs! She hads, ofte
o spent as much for a trinket. TIL
!! very fact that women Of fashion, WI
men Of her own word, were alread
If coming to be painted by him, scorcl
r. ed her with a sense of humiliatio
II that he should be dependent on thei
]; patronage. That, at least, need news
G be, she reflected, with some exult,
ton. She had no high-fown theorie
of the beauty of art or Of the nobilit
of toll. 1t was enough to know ths
the man she loved would be free frol
u all sordid cares Of that kind-whe
e she married him.
Is She had reached this point in he
$ meditatiops when footstep startle
a her, and Winship himself gfided on
1T the divan beside her.
There were many reasons why
st should be moment wnen all guar
~ were down. They had lived throus
C. months of depressed emotion-mont
&c in which each had been problem
lg the others life. The thoughts Of To-
e. had been beaten back by large. pers
ID tent questions of mutual rights al
Of wrongs Now 1t leaped to the fro
til and claimed the field.
as Before he realized what he was So
J. ing, Winship had done that which,
ID weeks, he had been planning not
IN do. He had declared his love, as al
Id man To any woman and he had imnl,