Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1919 — DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

by Jane Bunker

ConvrisJht -The BobJoe-HESTUI Oft

CHAPTER I. Claire. I’ve always thought this adventure might credibly have happened to anybody else but me. Since it did happen to me I’ve come to the incredible conclusion that it’s your staid, proper spinsters who get Into some of the bluggiest ad ven t u res, only the world, just because of the bred-in-the-bone propriety of the people Involved, never hears about- the adventures. Ann Pres rick and I had spent the summer casually roving through Holland and Belgium, accompanied by two large suitcases, a bunch of extra soft lead pencils —mine —and a large paintbox and a white umbrella —Ann’s — searching such adventures, literary and artistic, as two rather staid and prosaic women would be likely to find, which adventures we hoped to convert into cash through the American magaAt the end of three months Ann - thought she saw two real live books as the offspring of our joint labors, so with my typewriter I went down to Vevay for the winter to work. However, I had hardly found myself nicely settled and “Belgian Byways” spurting along when I was cabled for td come home on family business. While I was having the portler buy my Paris ticket for me n lady’s card was brought to my room by the proprietor himself, telling me that the madame below stairs was the highly respected principal of a young ladies school. The madame turned out to be a pudgy, self-important person, speaking voluble and understandable English, who dived without waste of opportunity into her reason for visiting me: one of the young ladies of her school had just been telegraphed by monsieur le pere to meet him in Paris tn the morning and must go up by the night train—of a necessity, mademoiselle must be chaperoned upon the jpurney —and madanie had elected me to the privilege <K doing It. “That is something I never do, madame—chaperon strange young ladles.” “Madame —If you please—one moment. See the message of the father.” She pulled out a long telegram In French. “You see —he goes to America at once with his daughter. She must be in Paris in the morning must, you comprehend ?” “Madame, you really must excuse me and allow me to say bonjour. I never chaperon strange young ladies.” With that I sailed off upstairs as

fast as my legs could carry me. After what rd said to ipadame and the way Td treated her It never occurred to me that she’d laugh at my refusal. she did. She simply brought the child to the station and put her in my hands. And I saw a pair of beautiful big round eyes and a pair of beautiful big braids behind — Td seen the braids the moment I entered the station and 'before madame had discovered me —and a charming, charming little creature about fifteen, in short frocks, and she put her little exquisitely gloved hand In mine and said, “Oh, do let me go with-you IHI not cause you a bit of trouble. You make me feel so safe and I’m so The last came out with a little gulp, and, silly old thing that I am about children of just that age—where childhood’s world Is closing them out of Its hood isopening the door to of straying feet —I said, “Common, my dear,” and put my arm around her, ’■ V' 1 x 1 and away we went. Claire—she asked me to call her by her first name —was as good as her । word. She didn’t make me the least trouble and she saved me a great deal at the frontier, for she spoke both French and German fluently—which I don’t —and when a dingy, villainouslooking customs official eviscerated our compartment I was only too thankful I had the child with me. I thought I, heard her say, “C’est ma mere,” and why she should be telling them about her mother I couldn’t make out. So I asked her. The child blushed furiously and took my hand. “Don’t be angry with me, please. The man insisted on knowing who you were and I told him you were my - mother.” > And actually— that will show you! the old softy I am and the way Td fallen in love with the little thing— I wished it were true. "I was so frightened,” she went on, “that I hardly knew what to do. So I told him—l told him that”—she was red as a rose now —“I told him that! you were the duchess de Pauncefort — FingHah you know —and were traveling Incognita. That’s why they were an so civil." “Why, my dear child,” I expostulated, for I do hate unnecessary lies.

“I don’t thlnli all that was called for. I had nothing the officers might not have seen in welcome.” — She hung her head and admitted, “I was afraid you wouldn’t like it, but papa told me what to say in order to escape Indignity. You see there are so many Russian spies passing the frontier—some very important ones have been escaping with papers and they are mostly women.” She seemed reticent about her father, saying he traveled most of the time and was In the diplomatic service and that she and her mother lived in Paris. But last September dear grandpa had had a stroke and her mother had to rush to America to a place called California, and she —Claire — was sent for safekeeping to madame’s school. Monsieur le pere met us at the station. Claire saw him in the distance, and with a cry of joy skimmed along the platform and into his arms. I eame up sedately, just as her father set her down, and was introduced and thanked. Monsieur de Ravenolhad an air and a way, and the way was as con-

vincing as the air. He gave me all the gratitude for the favor rendered that it was worth —and I thought rather ,more, and then immediately insisted on my breakfasting with them. Where monsieur took us I don’t to sive, obsequious place and he seemed to be at home there. _ “it was when! was biting Info my second roll that monsieur came out plop—no less than that I was to take Claire on the steamer with me and let her share my stateroom! Oh, It was more than a favor he was asking—madam'S and himself and Claire would be forever in my debt. He himself had expected to sail In two days and join madame in New 'York, but he was “recalled to court” (what court he didn’t trouble to tell me), and he could neither take Claire with him nor yet leave her alone In Paris. Madame de Ravenol yould be awaiting her chitd in New York, hence if I" my so estimable care until I delivered her on the other monsieur would retain for me an everlasting gratitude. Claire started and exclaimed, “Papa!" when she heard he was not sailing, and was meaning to send her on alone, but he gave her a hard look and a sharp sentence in what sounded German, but Pve since learned was a dialect I couldn’t be supposed to understand. AU I got of it was a stern, “Du must,” which silenced the girl completely. It was that —the callous rudeness toward me, though at the moment he was in the very act of asking a great favor—that nailed my resolution to have nothing whatever to do with him his affairs. I replied, the moment <<>t the chance, “It is quite impossible, monsieur. I never share a stateroom with anyone.” “Ah, madame —a child —a little child alone, alone,” —he looked at me reproachfully. "What shall she make alone on that long voyage? And coming to your customs house In New York—l hear sat sey are terrible—rat ladies* receive indignities beyond belief —being stripped to ze skin to be searched by monsters in human form.” I flared up at this—our customs bouse isn’t anything to give one par-/ ticular pride, but It’s nothing indecent, and I told him very flatly it was not so. Tn an instant of unreserve I men-

tinned that I had a fourth cousin to the service who always met me and saw that I got through— he was to charge of the Inspector who examined baggage on the line I always took. “Ah, how excellent it would be for Claire to accompany you,” monsieur exclaimed with feeling. “All her anxiety would zen be set at rest by your so estimable cousin. Surely you will not refuse her to share your stateroom?” I was exasperated again in a minute. I’ve got Quaker blood in me, from a people whose yea is yea and whose nay means “that settles it” I snapped out that my stateroom was too small even for one, in comfort ‘‘Butlshall most gladly engage ce largest on board for you and "toy daughter,” he cried, brightening. “Indeed it is no more zan right zat I pay ze entire passage.” Claire started and turned furiously red. Child as she was, she had a breeding and a delicacy of feeling that her father lacked. As for me, my eyes were popping. I threw my napkin on the table and let this icicle slide off my tongue: “Monsieur, I am perfectly able to pay my way through the world without the help of strangers,” and with that I rose, adding, “I must say farewell to you and your daughter. I I have many things’to attend to and my i friends are expecting me." Monsieur and Claire immediately followed my example in rising, monsieur calling the garcon to bring the bill and telling Claire to go with me to the saloon. As she was leaving he called her back for another communication not meant for me to understand. She, poor child, wasn’t equal to the task he set, for she blurted out, very red in the face, “Papa wants me to beg you to take me with you—" and then stopped and looked at the floor, for the smile she saw in my face.* “I understand just how you feel, my । dear,’ ’ I said gently. “You’re too beauI ttfully well bred to urge «the granting of a favor that has been and must be refused.” —“Oh. hotv did you knbw how I felt?” she gulped, looking up with her big eyes relieved of their embarrassment “it’s just how LfeLUand I’m ashamed that”—she bit her lip and kept back what she was going to say—that her father had asked it —and said, artlessly, “I love you.” She put up h»r face and we kissed. That one uvtie moment —me feeling that she was the real thing—kept me believing in her later in spite of everything, and when I couldn’t believe in her at as the finished accomplice in a detestable crime. Monsieur te pere hurried in. ~ A glance quite plainly passed between themin which she told him it was ho use. Then he said the carriages were outside, and he saw me into one and gave "the driver the name of the hotel I told him, and I was off in a cloud of adieus and bow’s and hand-waves and whip-cracks and was presently at my hotel. (To Be Continued)

Monsieur de Ravenol Had an Air.