THE OTHER WOMAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2574, 7 August 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE OTHER WOMAN.

(By George Randolph Chester.) Outside, the snow was pelting at his broad ..window-panes ..and scurrying .so thickly over the lawn and among the shrubbery that lie could scarcely sec down the broad driveway to the avenue. Somehow tho chill of it all seemed to strike in upon the reverie of Nestor Dawes, and to cool the fervid dream that lie had been unconsciously indulging. Impatiently he closed the double blinds, shutting out the wintry prospect which had cast its gloom’ upon those bright fancies. Then he drew a huge leather chair up near- tho blazing gas-logs, and there, in the great, dim library, the man who had risen to his position of enormous command through the sheer doggedness of his will, deliberately summoned the mental pictures which had given him so much anxiety and doubt. He had shut liimself in for an <-.■ ing with some important paper-, but now they lay strewn upon his table, neglected l’or this other interest which had come upon his virile middle age with a force that had swept him'off his feet.

The second Sirs Dawes 1 He recoiled at tho phrase, as if he had startled himself by speaking it aloud. "Why there should he something almost unsavory in the expression, something that smote him guiltily, he could not toll, but he strove to cast from liis mind that form of words. As Beatrice Lane tho world knew her. For three years her beauty and grace, and that indefinable charm which makes for the.successful principals in musical plays a lasting place, had I-ecu the sensation of Broadway. She was clever of speech, and witty too, as Dawes had found when he was introduced to her; and then, after that chance meeting, had begun the round of ga3 r suppers and other more or less Bohemian affairs which had bewildered and captivated the stern man of business.

From what lie had heard of the theatre, lie had been surprised to find that _Beatrice, arid many of her like, kept, themselves . 'within certain rigid bounds. There were never fewer than four in her parties. She lived with her mother. No indiscretion could be charged; against: her., It was a new world ta Nestor Dawes, and be briglitenod under it, even as lie thril ed under the .fascination of Beatrice Lane... The intoxication that would have fitted better with bis youth came upon him now, and of nights he became a notable ligufo among that idle class known as ‘‘men about town/' admiring their wit, their gaiety, even their very flippancy and pessimism. Had he hub known it, he was a. lion among them—not in the sense of frame, but .in the' sense of ability and strength —and they were jackals ; but lie never awoke to this. As he sat in the dim library, with no light hut the blue flame of the gas-logs, ho went back over the enchanted days when first her beauty and vivacity had cast a thrall upon him. Blit no’man may wholly control his fancy { and presently, by that wonderful necromancy with which the imagination thrusts back the walls of our environment, he found

himself wandering into other scenes. Ho seemed to be in a huge dininghall, where great, ugly imitation-mar-ble columns broke up tho vista into a bewildering mass of flower-decked tables, and brilliantly caressed women, and polished men in creaseless black and white. Ho recognised the place, ,by its ceiling of stucco and garish fresco, by its walls of gaudy gilt. It was the din-ing-hal] of one of the expensive hotels at which lie had stopped, and across tho table from him she sat—the second Airs Dawes.

'The roinbomoss that had of late safe upon his face deepened. He had been trying to keep himself from mental criticism of her, but it .vould not be stayed. 'There was no impropriety that could be urged against her; she had been as circumspect as could be desired; but somehow he felt it to be her fau’t that she attracted so much attention. He had grown uncomfortable under the constant craning cf necks that attended them. It seemed to him that it had been better fo r her to oick? and act in a manner to tone down her striking beauty, so that iFshould be Jess startlingly apparent.. Instead, she still used every artifice tq enhance her lure. She was just a shade too gaudy, and tin? very tiling that had so attracted him in the beginning, and that now attracted so many other men brought forth his present disapproval Her cleverness and her spark’e wore on Him, too, Suddenly it had come to seem frothv’, except that in her wit there appeared always to be'a sting, nowadays. Her flippancy, too, jarred upon him: a trifle, including, as it did, disregard, if not an undervaluation, of nearly everything he held of serious worth. The riches lie had been able to shower upon her she took as her right, with no regard for the Mood that it had cost, him, for the energy he had put into the building up of his fortune, for the ability and the prowess that its possosdon bespoke. There came a sudden clutch at his heart- as the faint suggestion crept into his mind, only to be thrust back again with all his panicstricken will, that possibly lie might have made a mistake!

As he sat, at last overtaken I.y the dawn cf a distressing knowledge that he had fought off for so long, liis wandering glance rested far a moment upon a woman who was dining alone at a table on tho other side of one oi the Mg columns. Her hack was turned art y toward him, so that ho could see her profile. Nellie! He was startled almost out of Ids control, but he was not a man whose nerves could be shaken for long.

Seeing that Beatrice, to whose chatter he had been unresponsive, was nowlooking out through the window into the street, lie watched by stealth the woman who had toiled and saved and helped him in every way possible when they were struggling from tho obscurity in which they had wedded. She was dressed neatly, even richly—for he had settled an ample income upon her when lie had forced her to put him awav — but she was dressed most modestly, too, so that she would scarcely attract passing attention. The striking things about her, as .he observed her narrowly now, were the quiet repression and the gentle dignity that wore in every line of her poise, and in evert' movement that she made.

•Suddenly the scales fell from Lis sight. He had always—and especially in these later years, after he had begun to meet the women who cultivate their lure —thought of her-as plain; hut now he looked at her with new eyes. There was the beauty in her regular features that men in their inmost hearts reverently worship--the beauty of honor and purity and goodness. He remembered now, with, a clearer understanding, that she had always, wherever he had introduced her, been treated with a respect and deference which had been vegv gratdying to him, but which, in his

conceit and arrogance, he had taken as a, tribute to himself, assuming that she received homage because she was his wife. Oh, ho had been blind, blind! He did not stop to wonder wliat she was doing hero —that was her affair: hut whatever business it was- that hadbrought her to this hotel, he knew : f was entirety commendable. For a .moment a pang of jealousy shot over him as lie wondered who now were her friends, but he dismissed the thought at once, with the knowledge that t? think it- wore base. He knew, with a sense of unworthiness, that no other could supplant him in her loyal heart. (i Another possibility suddenly made him uneasy, and as they neared the end of their dinner he became more and more distrait. He had become a coward, lie did not wish Nellie to see him with —with Beatrice. He wished to time matters so that they should leave before she had finished, and .he had thought that he was about to succeed ; but destiny, which does -o many strange"things, willed otherwise, and as thow went toward the door he met her face to lace.

She did not see him until she drew quite close. Then, in the surprised instant that followed, their gaze met. and from her eyes there leaped, thrilling him through and through, the light that can never burn in any woman's eyes but once; and that light he answered with a message of his own which sprang from his heart unhidden, which he could not check. She loved him—loved him still, in spite of all that had passed! She should always love him, and to his shame and misery he found that he loved her, too—that she was still the wife to whom God had joined him, no matter how the laws of man had. permitted him to profane that sacred bond. V An almost uncontrollable impulse bade him hold opt his arms to her with a cry of anguish; but the repression that needs must bo came upon them both, and, with a co’d nod. they passed on jls strangers, hers to be the prv.il of bitter

memory, but h s to be the anguish, of shame.

Ihe chill of the wintry storm without seemed to strike closer upon- him, even through the closed blinds of his library windows.

“Why, Nestor, I did not know that you were here!” exclaimed a voice behind him—a voice with a trace of wistfulness in it. “I hope that lam not disturbing you.” “Nellie!” he cried, and, springing to his feet, he clasped her tightly in his arms.

She clung to !r'~ ■ instantly. He remembered, even in this ecstatic moment ’-hat she had always done so, iexpending gladly to his i ghtest touch; but now her face beamed up at him happily, all. its wistfulrmss vanished.

“Indeed I'm here!” he went on, with an exultant note ,n his voice. “It's too stormy to go out, Nellie, and we ll have { » long home evening together—just you and I, here by ourselves in the library.” Thank Hod it was she I Thank Go d he had not taken the rash .step which to-night, for the first time in his life, he had acknowledged to himself as a possibility. Thank God it was all but a reverie, a warn'ng to him of the hideous thing that might! have been!