A PAQUIN JACKET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2598, 4 September 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

A PAQUIN JACKET.

(By Anno Warner.) “It has just come. It is up in my room —I had just lifted it out when your card came.” She was looking up in his face and smiling. “It is so pretty, quite the prettiest little jacket you ever saw.” “I had a beastly time getting here,” lie interrupted moodily. He was a moody man with a square jaw* He was so moody and liis jaw was so square that her sunshiny smile and dimples suited him exactly. “I had to get up at four and bei driven six miles,” he went on, “and —” “But I was talking about my jacket,” she interrupted pleasantly. “It’s just pongee silk, but it’s cut—” “You’ve no idea how sharp it was, that drive across the moors,” he interrupted. “I never took such a drive before. The wind was like a knife. There isn’t but one person in tlie world that I would have endured such—”

“Oh, I’ll tell you,” she said hastily, but still smiling brightly, “I’ll get my new jacket and we’ll go for a walk. It’s so cool that I can wear it. I shouldn’t like to carry it, because that would wrinkle it, but —” / “No, we won’t go for a walk,” said the man savagely; “we’ll sit right here and I’ll say what I came to say. I may as well know the worst. I’ve got to get it out of my mind somehow. And here is the idace.’ \ “You looked rather fagged,” the blonde man said solicitously. It was later in the day now, and he was a very blonde man—so blonde that her black lashes and olive skin suited him exactly. “Have you been going too fast?”

“No,” she said, smiling. “Captain Belknap was here All the morning, and I wanted to walk ' and he wouldn’t walk, so I’m just a bit short on fresh air, that’s all.” “Do you want to walk?” asked the blonde man. “Oh, please don’t eav that you do. It’s not a nice day; the Bun’s hot and the wind’s cold, and it’s •o long since we’ve had a visit. And besides, there’s something I —” She looked at him in a quick, deprecatory way. “Oh, but I do want to walk,” be said, and then her courage got the better of her fright and dim-, pies bubbled forth. “You see, I have a jacket—a new one —a new one from Paquin’s, and I want to wear it dreadfully. It’s so pretty and the day is just right for it. I don’t want to carry it at all, because I wouldn’t get creases in it for —”

“Sacrifice tlie jacket to me,” the blonde man. “I never asked a favor of you before—did I? Please.”

“But I want—” she began. “I want something, too,” he interrupted, “and I want it terribly. Let me—”

“But I want to walk,” she cried in great agitation, “and I want to go right away now. I want to get my jacket—” But they did not go to walk, and she did not get her jacket. The blonde man stayed Tier- steps and said his say. ' ; ' : .... A little beforri man came in. He was not blonde and lie was not agitated. His jaw was not. especially square, either —but it was plenty square enough. He was a big man—so big that her littleness suited him exactly. ■ “What is tlie matter?” he asked in attentive astonishment, seeing plainly that something was gone wrong. a She was rather pale, but she could smile still. “I’ve been* wanting to walk in the park all day,” she said, “but no one would take me.’> “I’ll take you,” said the not-blond man. “Get your hat at once.” “I think that I will get a jacket, too,” she said. “It looks cool outside. She went upstairs and cairie back with her hat and the Paquin jacket, neatly buttoned. They went into tho park and paced along sedately. There was no special conversation of any kind. “I should think you’d be too warm,” the man whose jaw was not especially square, but plenty square enough, said presently. "“I think tliait I am too warm, but I—” she began.

“Give me your jacket.” He spoke aqthorntively. She stopped and took it off. He took it* She - started to protest at the way in- which he handled it, but it was alroady vised under his arm and the mischief was done. “Watch the children,” he said, walking on with a tread that trod the shades of Paquin into the dust. They looked at the little ones playing on the grass. While they were looking a sleeve fell out of the jacket’s folds, and he replaced it with a force that was final. But she did not even notice. They strolled on. Sometimes they talked and sometimes they didn’t. Presently he clasped his hands behind him

and held the jacked gripped between them in. a sort of ball.

"I think the flowers arc so lovely,” she said.

He took a fresh twist on. the jacket. “Its prettier than Hyde Park,” he said.

They went over the bridge. “Its beautiful to-day,” she remark-

“It’s perfect,” lie rejoined. They stopped by the pickets to watch the ducks.

“I can’t rest my elbows on the pickets,” she said. “No,” he said, “you can’t, can you ?” Then, a bright thought seized him. He rolled the jacket up tightly, and made a cushion of it to cover the pickets.

She rested her elbows on it without comment. „

“There are two ducks,” she said. “Let’s see where they go. Perhaps it is an omen.”

“They’ll stay together because they are mates,” he said. “Then it isn’t an omen,” she said.

He lit a cigarette with the calmness that dissolves omens into thin air. After a while they went on. “The joy of -being with you,” she said, “is that it’s just pleasant to be with you. We don’t have to be frantically entertaining one another every minute.” She turned at that, and the jacket cushion, thoughtlessly released, went over into the water. •'Oh, by Jove!” he cried. “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “It was an old one, anyhow,” and she laughed. “Was it really?” he said. “And when you came down I thought it looked rather fresh.”

“That is just because you are a man,” she declared, looking up at him, with a sort of lying that i s better and braver 'than truth in her eyes. “Men never know anything.” “I suppose not,” he laughed. She laughed too. There was ‘‘sunlight in their dual laughter-—sunlight, warmth and joy.

The man with the square jaw was on his way to Leeds. The man with the blonde liair was at Ranelagh. The two ducks—still together—were inspecting the jacket. “It’s an old thing,” said the gentleman duck.

“No, it’s quite new,” said the lady duck.

“Well, is it worth anything?” he asked, for he was a practical duck. “Yes, it will be warm and serviceable to help, make a nest,” said the lady duck. “Help me home with it, dear.”