The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1912-12-21

I could make these two hands as hon
est IS the day is long"
81 have my doubts" smiling little.
Suppose, for the sake Of an argu-
ment, suppose Fortune accepted me?"
Mrs. Chedsoye's good hunor re
turned. She knew her daughter toler-
ably well; the child had a horror Of
men. Poor Horace! Do you build
upon that?''
Less, perhaps, than upon my own
bright invention. My suit then to be
brief, is rejected"
"Emphatically. I have spoken"
ooh, well; the feminine prerogative
shall be mine, the last word. Good
night; dormi bene!' He bowed
grandly and turned toward his own
room
He possessed that kind of mockery
which was the despair Of those at
whom it was directed They never
knew whether his mood was one of
harmless fun or of deadly intent. And
rather than mistake the one quality
,, for the other, they generally pretend
ed to ignore. Mrs, Chedsoye, who
had similar talent, was one OF the
few who felt along the wall as one
does I'M the dark, instinctively. To
night she recognized that there was
| no harmless fun but a real desperate
| ness behind the mask; and she had
held in her temper with firm hand.
This was not the hour for a clash.
She shivered little; and for the first
| time in the six or seven years she had
| known him, she faced fear Of him.
| His great strength, his reckless cour-
age, his subtle way of mastering men
by appearing to be mastered by them,
held her in the thrall of a peculiar
| fascination which, in quiet periods,
| she looked upon as something deeper.
Marriage was not to her an ideal state,
nor was there any man, living or dead,
| who had appealed to the physical side
| of her. But he was in the one sex
| what she was in the other; and while
she herself would never have married
him, she ragged inWardIy at the posi-
| bility Of his wanting another woman.
| To her the social fabric which holds
| humanity together was merely a con-
| venience: the moral significance
| touched neither her heart nor her
mind. In her the primordial craving
| for ease, for material comforts, pref
| ty trinkets and gowns was strongest
developed. It was as If this sense had
been handed down to her, untouched
| by contact with progression. from the
remote ages, that time between the
| fall of Roman civilization and where
modern civilization began. In short
a beautiful barbarian, whose intellect
/ alone had advanced.
| Fortune was asleep. The mother
went over to the bed and gently shook
/ the slim, round arm which lay upon
/ the coverlet. The chi1d's nature lay
revealed as she opened her eyes and
smiled. It did not matter that the
/ smile instantly changed to a froWning
/ inquiry. The mother spoke truly
when she said that there were times
when she stood in awe of this, her
flesh and blood.
/ "My child, I wish to ask you a ques-
ton, and for your own good answer
truthfully. Do you love Horace?"
Fortune sat up and rubbed her
eyes. mo" Had her wits been less
scattered she might have paltered.
The syllable had a fnality to it
/ that treasured the mother more than
a thousand protestations would have
done.
7 Good night" she said.
Fortune lay down again and drew
the eoverlet up to her chin. With her
eyes shut she waited, but in vain. Her
i mother disrobed and sought her own
i bed.
i Ryanne was intensely dissatisfied
i with himself. For once his desperate
mood had carried him too far He
/ had made too many confessions, had
/ antagonized a woman who was every
4 bit as clever and ingenious as him
/ self. The enterprise toward which
they were moving held him simply be-
1 cause it was an exploit that enticed
4 wholly his twisted outlook upon life.
\ There was a 'forbidding humor in the
4 whole affair, too which he alone saw.
4 The possible rewards were to him OF
4! secondary consideration. It was the
fun of the thing. 1t was the fun OF
the thing that had put him squarely
upon the wide, short road to perdi
ton, which had made him first q
spendthrift, then thief. The fun OF
i the thing; sinister phrase! A thous
and times had be 1onged to go back
for he wasn't ali bad; but door after
door had shut behind him; and now
the single purpose was to get to the
end of the road by the shortest route
He did not deceive himself. His
desperate mood was the result of al
internal rage against himself, rage
against the weakness of his heart
Fortune Chedsoye. Why had she moi
j crossed his path at that time when he
might have been saved? And yet
would she have saved him? God alone
knew.
He heard Jones stirring IN his room