Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 278, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1919 — Diamond Cut Diamond [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Diamond Cut Diamond

By JANE BUNKER

Copyright by the Bobbs-Merrill Comm» ’ CHAPTER 11. ’ -i The Slipper. Ann was waiting for me at the hotel., While I unpacked and washed she sat on the bed and regaled me with the news. “Who do you think turned up, from home last week? You’ll never guess. Billy Rivers. And he’s just the dearest ever.” ” । Now, ages upon ages ago Billy Rlvers had gone to school to me In the I year of my Initiation Into the sacred mysteries of pedagogy In North Tonawanda, and I rather think —now that, I see things from the. middle-aged; point of view—that Billy taught me more than I taught him. He had been in New York now for some little time — since his graduation—a cub reporter on one of the big dallies. “What’s Billy doing over here?” “His mother had a stroke or something while she was at Alx for the I baths and Billy had to come over to' get her home. They’re going Cunard day after tomorrow If she’s able to travel.” When I came out of my stateroom on the steamer the next-day-but-one j after seeing my suitcase stowed the first person my eye lighted on was—, Claire! • ■ ' > I Claire* tripped up to me, delightedj but a little embarrassed, and in her ( wake followed a lady whose face was' very familiar, as mine was to her, and; a smile of recognition broke out on ■ both of us at once and we exclaimed • at each other, “Why, you’re the Lady of the Slippers.” Now “the slippers” were the top notch of my wild extravagant life in Paris and I’d never mentioned them | to Ann. I came by them in this wise: Just as I was leavipg for Vevay I had . passed a little shop on a funny little ' street and In the window was a pair of slippers. They were high over the Instep—so they’d keep my feet warm — and decorated with the queerest oriental pattern you ever saw, and they had low heels. i I bounced into the shop to ask the j price, and at the counter stood an-: other American lady with an identical pair in her hand. I demanded the ' price. “One hundred and twenty-five francs,” beamed madame, “and most reasonable.” The other American woman and I dropped the slippers like hot cakes - our reckless passion for spending wasn’t equal to twenty-five dollars for a pair of slippers. Madame came down ten francs and Inveigled us into trying on the slippers. There was a difference of half a size in the pairs and they fitted as though they’d been made in heaven. Madame came down ten francs more and then knocked off five, and we bought them at a hundred francs a pair, laughingly telling each other we’d caught each other In the act and promising never to give each other away. | T hsd Ilkßd this American woman and should have been glad to see her again; and here she was. She was pleasant and unaffected, a woman of • possibly forty; dark hair, black eyes, wary as to complexion; not what I would call handsome but with a distinct air. * Claire had introduced her as Mrs. Delario and later the child confided that her father had found her by accident as he had me. That he paid tor fare over as an inducement to her to come on this steamer —with me, I eyen then surmised. Claire and she shared the largest stateroom on

boards , There were two other women going •ver, but Mrs. Delario and I seemed tiie only ones able to keep our sea legs, while Claire stayed in her berth lor almost the entire passage. But the really friendly acquaintance between Mrs. me began by our being flung Into each other’s arms when our frisky little craft took an nnaTparted dive, trying to see if she could hit bottom with her nose. We made profuse apologies and dropped tor safety into the nearest chairs. I was clutching- vigorously at the arm of mine, when she fastened her gaze on a ring I wore, reached out and took my hand. She said, “What a very curious ring—lt looks as though it had a history,” turning it for different angles and fumbling at it as though she meant to draw it off. I wild it had, and she asked me to let her take it off and try It on. I had curled my fingers overbers to prevent it, for I hate to have people trying on my rings- So I shook my head and replied, "That would break the spell.” ah* dropped my hand instantly; —M, “Excuse me—l didn’t know It was that, though I felt the spell—the occult inAmmra—before I touched it. You know I think I felt it that first time we met when we bought the slippers, though I didn’t see the ring. I felt emnethlng occult all around you. You are under the protection of very pow-

Wen, or course, 1 naon't meant anything so serious as that when I spoke, but seeing that she was very much in earnest I let it pass and told her the story of the ring. It is a pleasantly romantic tale, the curious escapes from perils and sudden deaths coincident to the ring’s possession agiving you the feeling that Lt’s lucky. Mrs. Delario listened, and when I had finished she burst out, “I’m mad over gems—simply mad! It’s been the dream of my life to own them in handfuls. You can’t imagine the influence they have over me. I could could dance. They thrill me through and through. People don’t generally think it, but gems are alive." — We had some discussion on this, rather flippant on my part, and it was this incident that started us talking gems afid gem values, a subject that had been my pet delight since childflood when I learned the story of the ring that was one day to be my own. A few days later she came to my stateroom with a very mysterious air, said she had some stones she would like to have me value for her, and produced a package of topazes. She said she had bought them in a little town in Belgium. I ran them through my hands, held a few to the light and in less than sixty seconds told her they .were worth from ninety cents to a dollar anlece. She Was lh hlgn feather over it, saying she’d paid only a franc each for them. She next asked me to appraise the diamonds in a ring she wore. I gave her the value of the stones and the probable price that had been paid for it She appeared so much impressed by my knowledge that she flatteringly said as-she rose to leave me, ‘Til know where to come if I ever need expert opinion on stones —and I may some day.” I didn’t tbipk anything of this at the time —people always say it to me out of politeness—and Ino more expected her to call on me as a gem expert than I looked for her to call me as a physician or a lawyer or anything that I professionally wasn’t. She knew“T“ was a writer, for I was pegging away at “Belgian Byways” as hard as ever I could to get it ready in time for Blank’s magazine—so much that I had j to tell Claire frankly she mustn’t bother me while I was working. I remem- j ber that I was quite sharp to her one morning, saying I should not be able to go out on deck with her till afternoon, and after she had left me. looking rather sad, I had to rush to my stateroom for my forgotten penknife, and there was Claire. I confess it surprised me to see her i there without invitation, but she ex- ' cused it by saying that she thought I wouldn’t mind—she’d grown so tired of her own stateroom and Mrs. Delario was always talking about people she didn’t know —and wouldn’t I, just out of pity, let her lie in my berth a while? My suitcase was open in the berth. I took it out and stowed it; and then just out of pity I laid Claire down in ' its place and stayed with her. That । one trifling act probably changed the course of my life; but fm telling the story as it unwound its length and colled Its entangling meshes over 1116 straight and narrow path my feet were treading. It was because of our common interest in Claire that I saw a great deal more of Mrs. Delario than I otherwise should have done. It was on the last day out that she first mentioned ber own children to me, saying that one reason why she’d been willing to take the responsibility of Claire was that she was so like her Lila, a girl of thirteen In a boarding school; and from Lila she went on to Eugene, who couldn’t meet her at the steamer, unfortunately, because she’d come back two weeks early and he was in the West. He seemed very near her heart, and after talking of him for half an hour she either warmed to it or let slip by accident, I couldn’t tell which, the

words, “It’s the grief of my life—and of Mh, poor boy—that he detests my profession so. But what can I do?” “Your profession I What is your profession?" I exclaimed, thrown quite out of my customary reserve in asking personal questions. I thought she looked at me in a queer way, and I saw she hesitated to i answer. I was on the point of • apologizing for my inquisitiveness ‘ when she startled me by replying, “Fm ‘ a clairvoyant.” I I Was thrown off my reserve still more and couldn’t help echoing, “A dairvoyant-1” in actual astonishment, wu so different from what Fd

—« avnacKi IO tma K.- ■ She added quickly, “i saw you dtss-r approve of—-didn’t believe in the occult the day we talked about your ring —and I’ve been at pains not to^—not to bore you with talking shop, there are so many other interesting things that we have in common.” I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable and laughed to reassure her, “Oh, I’m not ‘sot ag’in it’—to tell you the truth, I don’t know a blessed thing abouflt, except what one picks up in the papers, and of course —” She fairly took the words out of my mouth that I was at the moment trying to keep In—“Of course one gets prejudiced and looks on that sort of thing as—all fraud.” There were both anger and a twinkle in her eye, as though she knew she’d caught me in the act, and then she adfled: “It’skpartly what I went over so look up some new mediums with a view to having them come to New York and give seances.” And from this she went on and described some of the phenomena she’d actually seen with her own eyes. For instance, a little peasant boy in the south of France —where, she left me to guess, and I fancied she didn’t like to trust me with {he secret —Jacques Lerolls, T ‘whose phenomena were more wonderful than Eurapia Palladino’s.” He was a physical manifestation medium. He “was greater at ten years of age than Slade.” Still even Jacques Lerolls wasn’t so wonderful as a young girl in Paris — she 1 brought stones covered with dripping seaweeds out of the bottom of the ocean, and she had once brought a live bird into a locked room during a seance and had put it —after it had fluttered all about and everybody saw it —into a closed cage—“dematerial ized it twice in one evening,” said Mrs. Delario. This girl had only just begun to develop materialization as one of her phases. I confess it struck me as Mrs. Delario talked and told me how she’d been trying to make arrangements for one of these persons to come over with her that she was getting up new turns her own shows much as a vaudeville manager hunts up new’ performers for his. She asked me to visit her in New . York, not professionally but as a friend, and still, if I were interested and would undertake some investigations, she’d *be glad to help me, and I couldn’t refrain from saying, “That is, youil put me next to some firstclass 'spooks?” (To Be Continued)

It Surprised Me to See Her There.