TEMPERAMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2580, 14 August 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

TEMPERAMENT.

(By Eleanor Mercein Kelly, author of “The Girl who Forgot,” “A Friend of Jimmie’s” etc.) \ “Lippincott’s Magazine.”

“Zeiie, I cannot bear it one moment!” The lady suddenly cast her cigarette on© way and her novel another. “Is this adventure? Bah! In my own car there was at least room to breathe. To retire with the chickens at 11 o’clock —bien, it is perhaps; a novel experience you promised, but it does not amuse. I am bored. I toll you I am bored! Insolent! Why do you not speak?” The maid continued imperturbably to smooth the blue-black hair under her brushes into long satin strands. “It is perhaps three seconds,” she remarked, “since rnadame desired me to ehut up.” The lady groaned. “If you were simpatica, if you were in the slightest degree—zut! What can one expect of a woman? My book, instantly! Do you-not see that I have dropped it?”

“If Madame were to permit me to rqad to her,’ suggested the maid, “I perhaps —” Her mistress snatched the book from her hands. “But certainly not! You have an accent unspeakable. Moreover this is no reading for the unmarried. Zeiie, I blush for you ! Ciel, that persons who have such immodest thoughts rush to display them in books! It is astonishing. I should take them to confession, me. . . .

“You say there is nobody out there in the car —nobody at all?” “Four commercial travellers,” repeated the other, patiently, for the third time, “a fat lady who snores—oh, but horribly!—a very young gentleman in black (too young, Madame, as I have said), and a person with an infant.” “An infant—bon!” The lady clapped her, hands. ' “Infants T Adore. Bun, Zeiie, fetch mo this child on the instant.” “But at such an hour! It- is of a certainty sleeping.” “Then,” said tho lady, cheerfully, “it is I who shall wake it.”

Zeiie returned -empty-handed. “It wakes already,” she reported. “It roars. The parent is distracted. Up and down she marches, up and down, while the wails of the infant rend tho air. It is not, I think, an infant which Madame Avould enjoy.” “It should not be marched. It should be trotted,” said the lady briskly, springing to her feet. “I will show lior.”

Zeiie cast herself appealingly before the door of the state-room. “Madame, the costume!” she cried. “I beg of you to consider. The drummers—the young gentlemen in black—picture to yourself how they will staro and stare!” “'lt is possible,” admitted tho lady. She wheeled about to inspect herself in a- mirror. What sho saw was a gracious deep-bosomod figure in a trailing robo of pale blue velvet, with here and there a hint of lingerie peeping forth. The bare feet were thrust into blue velvet slippers. The hair was folded Madonnawise about the brow, falling in a heavy braid over each shoulder. The face was white, a trifle hollow in the checks, with a large, sweet, mobile mouth —not a pretty face, perhaps; but people rarely looked beyond the eyes to see. For they were wonderful eyes, gray and black by turns, shadow and fire.

A smilo crept into them slowly. “Ma petite,” she said, tilting up the maid’s chin till their lips met, ‘ r if you were as I, should you be very angry because tho men stare and stare?”

Presently the very young gentleman in black emerged tentatively from the smoking compartment, where he had retired to escape the wailing of the baby. There was blessed peace in the car, filled witli a low, sweet humming. The boy stopped and stared, and if lie had been a Catholic would-have cros,sed himself. A Madonna sat enthroned before him, draped in cloudy blue, rocking a child to and fro on her knees, and singing. It was like a flute heard far away. Her face bent low over the child, brooding and tender, and one little pink hand clung fast to a braid of her hair. The boy dropped his eyes. The concentrated stare of the lour drummers seemed to him sacrilege.

She glanced up sideways as ho tiptoed by, and beckoned confidently. “So many people breathing here—pah! It is—-what you call? —stuffy. Will you not open the windows on the otlior side?” '-..1-

“I wish I could,” he _ said, regretfully; “but, you see, the woods are on. fire over there, and tho smoke is pretty bad.” “Ha! The woods on fire?” she cried. “Is it near? We are in danger, then?” “No, not at all. It is far to .the west,” he hastened to assure her. 1 .! 1 •

‘/But of course.' That 1 would b? too much luck,” she said, sighing. The boy laughed. “Oh, wo are running at top :,pcjd to get out of the neighborhood, if that is any comfort to yon!”,. Arid indeed the car was swaying and rocking very uncomfortably.

She patted the seat beside her. “Sit down,” she/said. “Sit down and. talk. I am most horribly ermuyee. I cast myself upon your chivalry. Everything fails me, even this ungrateful infant. I come to amuse myself with him, and voila! immediately he Biceps.” “Then you must he a magician,” said the boy. “You have accomplished the impossible. Everybody has taken a at quieting the poor little beggar, qven I. But I believe,” he added shyly, “that you never have any trouble in making people do what you want them to do/’ She beamed on him. “Good! You u.r know how to talk. That is what I like. Compliments. A ml'confidences. Let- us bo friends at once. Let us exchange experiences.”

Ho tried to play up to her. “You begin,” he said. “A fellow of twentytwo hasn’t many -experiences, you know.”

Sho saw the sudden shadow in his eyes, and laid her hand gently on his black sleeve. “But you have had the best one—sorrow,” she said. “It was tho father, perhaps —no, the mother? Alas! Still, sorrow is the best experience, believe me. And non’ you* go to the groat city to make yourself a career —not?”

“How could you guess?” he asked. She smiled at him wisely. '‘Painting? Music?’ She picked up his hand to examine it closely. “No,” she said decidedly. “Nor tho stage, I think. Then it is literature. Good! You are a poet.”.

The boy’s hand Avas thrilling from her touch. “No, not a poet,” he said, with a rather unsteady laugh. “Just a journalist. A terrible come-down, isn’t it? But some day, perhaps—” She nodded. “The stepping-stone, eh? First one lives, then one writes.” “Well, I suppose you’ve got to live if you expect to write,” he admitted, facetiously.* But the lady chose to misunderstand him. “You have got to live if you expect to do anything,” she cried. “Write, sing paint-, act —oh, we must allow our hearts to throb before we can make to throb that so-called heart of the public! Pouf, such a public! To take its emotions out of books or the playhouse, like medicine out of a bottle! And we must suffer everything, we others —grief, pain, passion, sin, remorse, everything that the public may observe aud clap its hands. Eh, bien! I would not be a public, me. To look on, always to look 'on —how that is stupid! I am not afraid to live.” “Nor I!” cried the boy, his eyes kindling to hers. “Only—only I don’t just know how to go about it.” “I will tell you. Begin by loving. End by loving. It brings all the rest. Love when you can, whom you can, how you -can. To be out of love is to he dead. Are you married?” she demanded.

The boy shook his head, staring at' her, fascinated. It seemed to hus that he was already beginning to live

“Bon!” she said. “For women it is the necessary experience. For men, no. Do not marry.” “But I am engaged,” he admitted. “There is a girl at homo who promised to wait for me.” Tho lady snapped her fingers. “What of that? You are not bound.”

“I am afraid I am,” he said. “Y-ui see, I—l kissed her good-by.”

She laughed merrily. “Naturally! But of course! Oh, amusing one, how many will there be whom you will kiss good-by. But this girl,” she said, seriously, “is she of us? Has she a temperament?” “I never thought about it,” confessed tho boy. “She is pretty. She likes to sew and cook, and —that sort of tiling ” The lady made a contemptuous gesture. “Never g*-* luu**,',' she said with finality. “You have nothing' to gain from her. Sew and cook—ha! She cannot make you a poet. See! Already you are not certain that you love her. Am I right?”

She leaned towards him, letting him look deep, deep in her eyes, her hand laid gently on his. “You arc right,” he stammered, incoherently.

At that moment the train, with" one loud shriek from its engine, came to a sudden stop. Everybody woke up and demanded to know what had happened. “At last an accident!” cried the lady gleefully ; and, depositing the child in its mother’s arms, she went forth to investigate.

They had otoppod in the midst ot deep woods. There was a glow in the western shy like sunset, except for the pall of smoke, that trailed below ; and over the puffing engine a dull roar eould be heard, a snapping, crackling, roar, mingled with the crashing of timber.

“Observe,” said the lady, pointing. “You have told me fibs. It is not far away after all, that fire.” The train started with a jerk, and the conductor, swinging himself up behind them, stood for-a moment on the platform, frowning towards tho flaming sky.

“Weil, well,” said the lady, tapping her foot. “Am I not,to bo told wlmt is the matter?” . He turned as at tho voice dr authority. “Beg pardon, miss. It was just a family of settlers who stood on tho track/ you see, sc we had to stop or run over’em. We certainly wouldn't have stopped otherwise. That’s a lot nearer than I like,” ho exclaimed, nodding towards the west.

“But why,” demanded the lady, “did the family of-' settlors endanger their lives by standing upon the track?” “Why, they waited too long and got burnt out, i>oor devils! Lost every-thing—-crops, house, cattle, even the pig and the watch-dog.” The lady was pufliing the rings from her lingers. “That, is very sad,” she said. “Here, and here, and hero. These will buy plenty more pigs and watch-dogs, bein' ?”

The conductor otared openmouthed at the glittering jewels on his palm. “Why, madam!” lie gasped. “You wish me to take these diamonds for—”

“Pigs and watchdogs,” she said, nonchalantly waving him away. “Oh!” breathed the hoy. “You arc splendid ! You are like a queen. I want to he one of your subjects. May 1 . and lie caught the ring. ess hands to his lips. “La, la, la! Do you hear?” she appealed to the surrounding atmosphere. “Already this youth makes love to me, and I do not even know his name.”

“It is Thomas—” he began, but she interrupted. \ “Bon! That is enough. I shall call you Tom-mee. It is a nice name, Tommee. It fits;” and she patted his cheeks affectionately. The boy followed her into the car Avith his heart thumping. But his plans for a further tete-a-tete were frustrated. The car was filled with Avide-aAvake paesengers in various stages of undress, all at the Avindows, watching that ominous glare in the sky. The menace had become plain to everybody. The roar of the flames could be heard distinctly aboA r c the rattle of the flying train. Great sparks shot toAvards them over the doomed forest. In spite of the closed windows, people Avere coughing with the smoke. Once the conductor came through AA'itli Avords of reassurance, belied by the strained anxiety of his face. “We’ll' make it all right! There is no real danger. We are getting eA'ery pound of steam out of the engine and ought to reach cleared land in fifteen minutes, if all goes Avell.” People stared at each other. If all goes Avell ! Zeiie produced a rosary and began to patter prayers under her breath. The lady slipped her hand into Tommy’s, and he clasped it tight, urging her not to -be frightened. “Frightened?” she said with a long breath. “But this if magnifique!” and suddenly in the tense silence of the car, she thrcAV back her head and began to sing. It was a strange song, wild and defiant, such a song as a Viking may have chanted as he sailed into battle. Tho passengers listened, amazed, with pulses thrilling, forgetting their fear, forgetting their peril that crept closer at each moment—listened until the last ringing note died away. Then one of the drummers sprang to his feet. “Now I knoAV her!” he cried, triumphantly. “Ladies and gentlemen, we h,ave. just had the privilege of hearing—” A frightful grinding of brakes drowned his i*oice—there was a crash—the oar reared on end—‘then silence. Silence and darkness; through which a steady crackling, rushing sound gradually penetrated to the ears of the boy. He opened his eyes with great effort, dimly realising that there was no need to hurry. He struggled to rise, but a weight thrown across his body held him down, and there was a stabbing pain in his left side. “Can anybody help me, please?” lie called faintly.

** There Avas no ans Aver, not a groan, not a sigh. “My God! Is eA'crybody killed?” he cried, choking as a breath of smoke filled his lungs.

Smoke! Suddenly he remembered. They Avere fleeing from the forest fire, and in the confusion he had forgotten. “1 don’t blame them,” said the boy, stoutly. Then, because he was a hoy, he put his hands over his face and sobbed.

“Tom-mee! Oh, Tom-mee. Are you here?” The voice came faintly from somewhere beneath him, it seemed. His heart stood still for a moment.* The lady. They had forgotten her, too, the miserable curs!

“Don’t be frightened,” lie called loudly struggling AA'itli the weight on his body" “I’m here. Don’t be frigntenod.”

“Bon!” said the \*oicc nearer. “But Avliy can’t you come out? I now craAvl in to see.”

In a moment he felt hands on his face. “But you are sticky! You bleed!”

“Just a little cut on the head —please don’t faint,” he begged her. “I have no time for such nonsense as that,” she said briskly. “First I shall remove this pile of baggage that sit upon your chest.” .“You’ll strain your back!” he protested. “Where are all the men?” ’ “The men?” she laughed. “Aha, those noble animals are scampering down the track like mice! The conductor has said everybody was safe. Bien! They are content. Shall'they doubt the word of the conductor? Never! Therefore I return alone. Pourquoi? Because I know that if you are safe you are at my side.” While she talked she was pulling and tugging and pushing, till at last he was able to sit erect.

“Now, come! Crawl downward through this window —see? It hangs over a little muddy ditch, where you must wriggle on your estomac like a worm. So! Aic, wliat a squeeze—l thank Heaven -I am not a tenor, ’ she panted as she emerged beside him. (To bo Continued.)