Newspaper Page Text
THB HOm S COLLECT,
y,'\
CHAPTER I.
The Crimson Mark.
T'S my favorite •waltz,”
said the duchess. "I
want to dhnee.”
"Another excuse not to
give me an answer,” said
the duke.
The woman laughed.
“Well, if it is?”
"You are driving me
mad, that’s all. Perhaps,
it’s not much to you.”
"It’s a great deal.
There! I'll give up the
waltz and go out to the
rosary with you. as you asked, to—look
at the moon. Now, am I not good?”
“I will toll you when I’ve had my an
swer. Come!”
He had a masterful way, and it pleased
her whim to obey. They stood 'in a cu
rious position toward each other, these
two, and for the duchess it had its fas
cination, though she rebelled. She was
in a.strayge mood tonight 8he knew
v.ha4 he wished t t f say, hut Jhe was not
sure what she wished to say in return.
The dance was at the country house
of a cabinet minister, whose wife was
the duchess’ intimate friend. The duke
had come from town on purpose, though
he had an engagement in London early
next morning, and to keep it must leave
scon after midnight. For the sake of
less than a hour with her, he had spent
three hours in a railway train, and
presently would spend three hours more
in the same dull way. She would have
been less than a woman if she had not
been flattered.
The rosary at Revel Abbey was as fa
mous as the old house. Tonight, bathed
in moonlight, the roses were sweet, pale
g bos ts of their daytime selves, and their
perfume as a spell of enchantment. The
tall, handsome man. and the tall, beau
tiful woman In her gleaming white dress
— filmy as if woven of moonlight—walked
In silence down the straight path, until
they came to a marble walled terrace at
the end, which looked out over low-lying
country to the spire of Salisburg cathe
dral. There they paused.
"Isn’t it beautiful?” asked the Duch
ess.
"Beautiful,” replied the Duke, his eyes
r.ot on the scene, but on her face. Her
hand lay soft as a fallen rose leaf on
the carved balustrade of marble. He
closed his upon It. "You know I wor
ship you!’’ he exclaimed, almost fierce
ly
"Do I? I don’t believe you know It
yourself. You think you do because you
and I have found ourselves suddenly cast
— without rehearsals—for the roles of
leading man and leading lady in a ro
mantic drama. You don’t like to re
fuse ’ the part—ah. now I’ve made you
wince! You can’t bear to be reminded
that I was once a singer in opera.”
"Because I am Jealous. 1 am hideous
ly jealous of every man who ever dared
fo love you. I am jealous of the one
who is dead—my cousin, and your hus
band, at least. In name. I am jealous
even when you dance with any one ex
cept myself.”
“That doesn’t sound encouraging.”
"I can’t help It. If jealousy be a
fault. It Is a fault born of love too
strong, too passionate."
"Love can’t be too strong or too pas
sionate to please the woman to whom
It’s given. But it isn’t only,the for ;« of
your fe-'.-llng for me. You spent years
in the Far East, when your father was
ambassador to Turkey. Your earliest Im
pressions as a boy were formed there.
At heart, you are a Turk, where wom
en are concerned. If you married, you
would like to shut your wife up in a
cage, and make her cover her face
when she went out.”
The Duke laughed.
’I’m afraid you are partly right. But
I promise to improve. If you will
give yourself to me, I’ll try with all
my heart and soul to make you hap
py.”
“But would you trust me? Women
of my type can't be happy unless they
are trusted. I should grow, in the end.
to hate a man who did not trust me
utterly.”
As she said this she looked up with
eyes so beautiful, so pure and true,
that he answered. Impulsively:
“I swear to trust you, all in all, and
always, because you are yourpelf. You
are unique—a priceless pearl among wom
en. It would be degrading you, degrad
ing myself, to doubt you ever.”
Moved by his sincerity and passion
and (though she scarcely knew this her
self) by the extra ordinary beauty of his
dark, handsome face, spiritualized by
the moonlight, the Duchess gave him
both her hands, sparkling with rings.
"I think that I am very much in love
with you, Guy,” she said, with an ador
able smile.
He crushed her hands against his lips.
"You will be my wife?”
"Yes—unless I change my mind.”
"1 won’t let you change your mind. I
won’t give you time.”
He would have caught her in his arms,
but with a little cry, she motioned him
away. "Take care, some one is coming!
Oh. it is your pretty little ward, Cecily
Dalzetl. with Dick Paget. They are
walking straight towards us. How white
the child looks in the moonlight.”
The duke murmured something inaudi
ble. but evidently not complimentary to
the couple who had cheated him of a
first kiss from the woman he adored,
lie pulled at his moustache savagely, and
did not speak when the newcomers drew
nearer, the young man calling out some
thing gay and foolish.
“Miss Dalzell was right!” Paget ex
claimed. "She has the sharpest eyes’
Vong before I saw anything but a waive’ 1
dress, she said, ’It's Guy and the
Duchess.’ *•
At this revelation the young girl, who
was scarcely past childhood, blushed so
cruelly that her small, oval face was
dyed scarlet even In the bleaching moon
light. "We only came on to look at the
view from the terrace," she hurriedly ex
plained, her voice quivering. “We won’t
stay and interrupt—your conversation.”
“You aren't interrupting in the least,”
debonairly replied the Duchess of Ox
fordshire, who was 25, and felt herself
countless ages older than the girl of 17,
whoso angry young eyes blazed above
flaming elieeks. "It is late. The Duke
has to catch his train. 'We were on the
point of going back to the house.”
His lips opened as if to protest, or to
make doubly sure of her by proclaiming
the secret then and there, but her look
warned him to silence. Dick Paget and
the girl turned towards the house, whose
many windows, jewelled with lights,
sparkled at a distance through a dark,
netted screen of trees; the Duke and
Duchess followed.
"You are cruel,” he said, in a low voice,
audible only as an inarticulate murmur
to the pair in advance, "to cheat me of
my last few' moments—the best of all!”
"We don’t want our engagement to leak
out yet,” answered the Duchess; “and
you know what a gossip Dick is.”
"Why don’t we want it to ‘leak out?’
I should like nothing better than to an
nounce it to Lady Wentwood when we
go in, and let her tell everybody here.”
"No, it’s delightful to think that, for a
while, no one in the world but our two
selves will know. Besides, that child,
Cecily Dalzell—did you see her face?”
”T didn't look.”
”T did. Guy, she’s in love with you/’
"Very silly if she is. Babies shouldn’t
fall In love; but if they do, they soon
get. over it.”
■’Tsn’t there any truth, then, in the
story that you adopted the child when
she was a tiny thing, with the idea of
training her to grow up an ideal wife?”
•'I confess there was some idiotic dream
of the sort In my head when T first
made her my ward. But that was 9
years ago. T was 20; she was 8.”
“Yet perhaps you didn't quite give up
the idea until—lately.”
“I gave it up, once and for ever, the
moment I saw' you.”
“A year and a half ago. She was »1-
'readv 16. old enough to have thoughts
and—hopes, which, perhaps, you had
given her some right to have.”
”1 never spoke of love to the child In
my life. The dream was a boy’s dream,
which gradually dissolved as the boy
became a man. The more rapidly Cissy
responded to training, the more she
bored me. It was as If I had created
her, and always knew exactly what she
would do and say next."
”1 know you had her educated In a
French convent, and I’ve heard that un
til lately she was never allowed to speak
to a man or a boy alone.”
"She has plenty of liberty now—you
see for yourself.”
"Ah! now that you no longer want
her. Think, if she cares for you, how
the change must be breaking her heart.”
"She ought to be jolly glad to have a
good time, and to have bee n allowed to
come out in the spring, after she had
teased me last year to do so, and I had
refused. But for Heaven’s sake, Magda,
don’t let us waste our time talking of
Cissy. I can’t stand being driven away
without having you to myself for five
minutes, and I’ve decided to wire Van-
derlane that I can’t meet him after all
tomorrow' morning. I shall stop here to
night.”
"No, please don’t!” the Duchess ex
claimed, quickly. "I should feel guilty,
actually unhappy, if you broke your prom
ise to your American friend—such a
splendid fellow as you describe him—on
my account. You must go. But I’ll tell
you prettily before everybody; then 1 11
slip away, wrap myself up in a cloak,
and drive to the station in the carriage
with you. It will not keep me much more
than half-an-hour away, and nobody will
guess—though, of course, I shall tell Doris
'VV'entwpod.”
"You are an angel!” exclaimed the
Duke, suddenly radiant. "In that case,
I would not miss going for the universe.”
Less than an hour after he was in the
train, with only the memory of a few
moments’ stolen bliss to live upon. But
it was enough—until the subtle poison of
the East, distilled into his nature, began
to work once more. Why had she been
so anxious to get him away tonight?
Was It. only to save him from missing
Vanderlane, or was that merely an ex
cuse to hide some secret reason of her
own. some old lover who was to be
whistled down the wind before she was
‘‘on with the new?” Sir Edgar Mal
vern, for Instance, who had been her
slave for months.
"Brute, that I am!” he reproached him
self. "Already I’m breaking the vow I
made that I would trust her all In all.
Yes, fool as well as brute, to throw
mud at my divinity—for she is divine;
and she is mine—mine for ever—in spite
of all the Edgar Malvern.s in the world!”
He leant back in the corner of the car
riage, which he had to himself, for this
late train was not crowded. Shutting his
eyes, he thought of the Duchess and of
the strange cliaTn of circumstances which
had brought them together.
Two years ago he had been on one in
particular, except "handsome Guy Du-
plessls,” with a little money left him by
his father, once British Ambassador
to Turkey. The Duke of Oxfordshire
(his cousin) had been old. to be sure,
though he would have been furious with
anyone who called him so; but the Duke
had just married, and had, besides, a
brother who was in heir. There seemed
little chance that Guy Duplessis would in
herit the dukedom, nor did he count upon
It.
But the Duke of Oxfordshire married
abroad, and soon after the surprising
news that at 59 he had taken for a wife
a beautiful girl of twenty-three or four,
came other news; he had been unaccount
ably seeized with a strange fit almost
immediately after the ceremony. What
was the cause of thit seizure, no one,
not even the specialists, could say, but a
rumor grew from valets’ tales, and the
story was that the Duke had suffered a
mysterious shock. For months he lin
gered in a state of half consciousness,
and his brother’s hopes (dashed by tidings
of the marriage) revived. Before the
Duke’s death, however, his brother. Lord
Arlescombe, had bee n shot by a man
who owed him a grudge, and justice was
cheated by the immediate suicide of the
murderer. A fortnight later the Duke,
died, and Guy Duplessis awoke one morn
ing to hear his valet solemnly addressing
him as “Your Grace.”
At first, the new Duke had been inclined
to share the general prejudice against the
foreign girl who had “entrapped” an old
man for his titje and vast fortune. Peo
ple talked a good deal; but that was be
fore the Duchess of Oxfordshire came to
England from Vienna, where she had bee n
married to the Duke, ami where they had
remained till his death. 3he brought
back her husbands' body, that it might
be laid in the family vault, at Oxford
Castle, ami it was in mourning that the
new Duke saw her for the first time.
Never had he seen a woman so beautiful,
so wonderful, and promptly he forgot
liis prejudice. So did everyone else,- ex
cept a few jealous women, and the lovely
young Duchess (whose mother had been
an English girl, married to a spendthrift
Austrian Baron) became the fashion.
The sensation of hep first appearance in
England, when she had taken society by
storm, was now a year and a half old.
Six months ago she had thrown off her
mourning and come out of seclusion. The
Countess of Wentwood. whom the duch
ess had known in Vienna when both
were girls, had taken the younger and
more beautiful woman under her wing.
The duchess went everywhere, and knew
every one; she had organized a salon al
most worthy of the name at her house
in Pont street; and the story was that
she had had fifty offers of marriage
before she had been as many weeks a
widow. Now, <at last, she had promised
to give her radiant self for the second
time to a Duke of Oxfordshire. It was
true, as she had said—the situation was
romantic and unusual.
As the Duke sat thinking over the past
” COX’nNraToxlASTT'XGE. "
e ■••#'•■ e ••* e •••e-*’ e ••■#••• e-«' e*-*®**-#'*' a e**' e^* # ••■e e ••• e*«- e
i a ••••*• a-» a-.-*-
i • ••■a a••• a a ••• a•<
In the Third House
By WALTER BARR
Third in the Political Series
>■ a a a a a a -*• a a -
0-*.0-»-0-*-0-*-0 >-0.> 0-».0.*.0.».0.«,0.*.0.v0-»a-«'a-*-8-«-0‘«-0-*-0-«-0-*-0-*-0->-0-*'0-«-0->-0-»0-«-0-*-0'*-0-»-0-*-0-»-0-*-a-*-0-*-e-»-0-*-«
) a •• a a a ‘*'8 a -»*0 *■* a '*'8 a a ■*' a *•' a '•* a -•* a ■** a-*- a*** 8 1 ** a-**a a*** a a **8 *•* a*** a **- a*** a 0 0 ■». a a -
1
•a
0 0 •—-••- a
HAT makes only seventy-
three,” said the smooth
faced man; “we've grot to
get two more.”
"We’ve got to quit
loser,” said the man with
a black mustache, “and
we might as well face the
music. There's no pos
sibility of getting a sin
gle one more. Not a man
in the other list can be
touched, and you know
it as well as I do, ^ant-
well.”
“I know that T’tn never whipped until
th’e last name on the roll Is caned. Send
for Shacklett as soon as you can, Baird,
and let’s go over it again.”
Baird stepped over to the button and
called the bell boy. While that youth
with carefully combed 'hair, blacked
shoes and worn jacket was sauntering
up the stairs, Baird wrote a note. He
did not look pleased. He stopped in the
middle to say that he knew when he
was Whipped. Cantwell finished his
scrutiny of the list of names before him
and thcil remarked again that they had
“got to win out.”
The minute hand of the clock held
aloft by Mercury on the mantel had not
passed over much more than a quarter
of a circle before Shacklett came In,
with a knock that apparently was mere
ly to announce his arrival rather than
to ask permission. He felt at home in
that room in the Leland. Six weeks
before he had waited for the answer
to his knock before walking In, and for
the next three weeks he had entered
that door at all times of the day and
night. He knew where the cigars were
kept, when the box on the table became
empty. He knew which of the two
chairs on the side opposite the*grate and
away from the window was the more
comfortable. When lie came up the ele
vator he never gave the number of the
room to the boy, but merely said “Par
lor floor.” Once when he left the ele
vator Senator Cunningham was in the
act of leaving this room, and Shacklett
walked down the corridor In the oppo
site direction with an expression of In
terested amiisement on his face and a
mental note for future use.
“Good morning,” he said Impersonally,
as he laid his hat and cane on the bed.
“How’s the game going now? Got ’em
all in hand, or have you dropped the
cards? It looks up at the Country Club
like old Laney's going to give you a
fight for your"money. Just passed him
on the street, and he talked about you
wlUiOut swearing; sure you’ve got ’em
stacked to beat him?”
"We need two more; can we get ’em?”
came from Cantwell like an order from
the quarterdeck, and yet with a faint
tinge of appeal in the tone.
"Don’t know; how bad do you want
’em?” And Shacklett stepped up to the
mirror to give his hair that characteris
tic pat with his fingers.
“Can you get them for three thou
sand apiece?” said Cantwell.
Shacklett turned around, took a cigar,
turned a smile upon both men like a
sweeping searchlight, lighted the cigar
and reached for his hat and cane.
"I thought you wanted to see me,”
he remarked in the most pleasant of
tones; ‘‘I’ll go over to the senate and
see the vote.”
”Whi|t do you want?” Bpird exclaim
ed; but Cantwell merely reached for the
ash receiver and said: "Can you get
two mor£ is what I want to know.”
“I oan't promise; you know I’ve got
some pretty leary ones now and made
them right. It’s a long shot, and I
can’t tell what I can do. If you must
have them. I’ll try; and I can get them
if anybody can, I guess you know; how
hard shall I trv?’-
Cantwell’s voice had a vibrant ring as
he pjayed his very last card in the
words: “I’ll give you S40.000 for two
more votes; two or none, you under
stand.”
”1 can’t promise you anything, gen
tlemen," said Shacklett; "I don't know
whether 1 can get them or not. Give
me the money In centuries and I’ll either
deliver the votes at roll call or return it
to you this evening. You know it's a
Mg contract, and it’s uncertain. You've
stirred up such a hullabaloo that it’s
worth a man's life to even dream about
your bill. You ought to have got down
here with your money a month sooner.
Every farmer knows this bill is a plain
old Chicago steal and you’ve got to
simply ask a man to ruin himself for
so much a ruin. But I’ll see If I can
find one willing to be ruined between
how and 2 o’clock;” and Shacklett
broadened his smile into a little Jaugh
as he "went out.
He walked rapidly to the elevator,
dropped to the first floor, and only nod
ded to several senators in the lobby on
his way to the street. He was not
planning. He had done that while in
Cantwell anH Baird’s room. He want
ed to get to the state house in the short
est time, and he looked a little vexed
when he found no carriage at the en
trance to the hotel. He walked quietly
around the corner and started up the
street that looks directly up to tl% Cap
itol of Illinois.
But Shacklett saw neither the state
house dome nor the ugly brown bridge.
He saw the face of a girl over at War
saw. He had not meant to tell her
that he loved her, but that evening
when they were coming home from
Nauvoo along the river road he half
told It, and the girl insisted on his tell
ing the other half. The moon was only
a little more than a slim crescent hang
ing over the Iowa bluffs, but every ray
of jts spectral brightness was reflected
from each wave in the river. The Viglils
of Keokuk shone like a string of gems
along the to-p of the high bluff, and
tho red and green lights below along
•the western shore and over the locks of
the canal added to t’he supernatural tone
of the scene.
The hoarse tone of an excursion boat
growing out notice of its approach had
turned the conversation between Shack
lett and the girl along the channel of
the friends waiting eagerly In the town
for the signal that the passengers had
safely returned. The next minute Shack
lett was talking about the wrong of
making one’s friends wait for him; the
echoes of the last long blast from the
boat’s whistle had not died away be
fore he had let slip the thought that
was with him most of the time; a man
ought not to ask a girl to wait until
he had gained a competency upon which
to support a wife.
Hq had meant to stop with that. He
had told her a hundred times with his
eyes that he loved her, and it was in
keeping with his diplomatic character to
embrace the opportunity of saying to her
in this way that he would never tell
her so with his lips.
“Do you think that fair to the girl?”
she asked.
"It is the only thing that is just to
her,” he replied, in a tone that his friends
knew always closed an argument.
“But suppose the girl would rather
wait than accept the other life?”
"She ’Will not be that big a fool: she
will be just as haopy with some other
fellow as with me"—that last word was
a slip that he always eluded to the
witchery of the omnipotent river. The
girl that Shacklett could love with his
whole' soul was of necessity a. girl that
could talk as frankly and yet as care
fully as tho shrewdest lobbyist spoke to
the member who was chiefly concerned
about fooling himself as well as his con
stituents.
"Not If she really loves you.” she said,
clearly; “and you* are doing her the
greatest iniury of her life in allowing
her to suffer because of false philan
thropy on your part. She has as good
a right to cast her own future as von
have to cast yours, and a much better
right than you have to cast hers for
her.”
Shacklett hated sham unless there was
good reason for It; he only helped a
legislator to fool himself when It was
absolutely necessary order to obtain
results. He ceased to be impersonal.
“No; I can’t argue against that—I’ve
tried to do it to myself—but nevertheless
I shall not tie you up like that house
boat until I am able to pilot you through
the rapids”—and the girl knew that the
matter was settled as well as Cantwell
knew that it was useless to talk to
Shacklett about an ordinary amount for
those last two members.
“And. nevertheless. I shall control my
own future,” she said. That was four
years ago. and Shacklett knew that tho
home was waiting for him when he
reached it, as surely as the houseboat
wintering in the canal would finally tie
up in the warm sunlight at New Or
leans.
Now. for the first time, Shacklett saw
the home and the girl closer to him
than the railroad bridge and the por
tico of the state house. He had. at least
SI5.000 in his pocket that would be his
own money, unless Graves made a bull.
Graves was not always sure, but his
“rake off” ought to make him as certain
as a sharpshooter. Anyhow 1 , those
chances had to bo .taken. There was no
way to improve them .except to make
Graves over, and that could not be done
in two hours.
It might as well be said for the satis
faction of the good people who cannot
make the distinction between buying
votes in the legislature and other equally
illegal methods of obtaining things, that
such a thing as stealing the money of
the Chicago gang would never have en
tered Shacklett - s mind. If there had
been danger of that, Cantwell would not
have given it to him. of course. Both
knew that there could be no real de
mand hiade for the return of the money
given for such a purpose by that gang;
but both knew It was as safe with
Shacklett as with the cashier of the
First national bank. Shacklett had long
since got past the stage of moralizing
about the purchase of legislators. It
was five years 'before that he was a
clerk of committee, and ever since he
had been a close student of that par
ticular genus. He read the remarks
about bribery In the papers exactly as
the rest of us read Tolstoy; and he had
no more Intention of living up to the
standard of the civil service reformers
than the rest of us have of living up to
the example of Jesus of Nazareth. He
watched a new legislature come In as
the orator watches the people ushered
into his audience; and he looked at the
•members seriatim as the physiologist
studies the animals in his laboratory,
but with a little more ^(ujoyment in
vivisection. It was near right to
Use a legislator for one’s own purpose
as it was to opeu an oyster shell or shoot
a bear. The whole genus were in Spring-
field solely because of the operation of
the law of the survival of the strongest
in practical politics. If they succumbed
to the stronger lobbyist the law was
still fulfilled. Shacklett, however, could
not have formulated all this, for ho was
little given to introspection; hut it paints
conte?eeS^cS^X"age^~nine?