Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1899 — A LIVING LIE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A LIVING LIE

By The Duchess.

CHAPTER XVI. “What is it?” says Lady Swansdown, harshly. “Why do yon look at me like that? Has it come to a close between ns, Isabel? Oh! if so”— vehemently—“it is better so.” The scene is the Court, and the gnests have just left the dinner table. “I don’t think I understand you.” says V,ady Baltimore, who has grown very i white. Her tone is haughty; she basi drawn back a little as if to escape from contact with the other. “Ah! That is so like you,” says Lady 'Swansdown with n rather fierce little laugh. “Yon pretent, pretend, pretend, from morning till night. You intrench yourself behind your pride, and- —” “Yon know what you are doing. Beatrice,” says Lady Baltimore, ignoring this outburst completely, and speaking in a eaim, level tone, yet with a face like iharble. , , “Yes. and you know, too,” says -Lady Swansdown. ’ Then, with an overwhelming vehemence: “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you assert yourself?” “I shall never assert myself," says Lady Baltimore, slowly. “You mean that whatever comes you will not interfere." “That exactly!” turning her eyes full on to the other's face with a terrible disdain. “I shall never interfere in this—or any Other of his flirtations!" It is a sharp stab! Lady Swansdown winces visibly. “What a woman you are!” cries she. I “Have you ever thought of it, Isabel I You are unjust to him —unfair. You possionatcly —“treat him as though he were the dust beneath your feet, and yet you expect him to remain immaculate, for your sake—pure as any acolyte—a thing of ice ” “No." coldly. “You mistake me. 1 know too much of him to expect perfection—nay, common decency from him. But you—it was you whom I hoped to find immaculate.” “You expect too much, then. One iceberg in our midst is enough, and that you have kindly suggested in your own person. Put me out of the discussion altogether." "Ah! you have made that impossible! I cannot do that. I have known you too tong. I have liked you too well. I have,” with a swift but terrible glance at her, “loved you!” “Isabel!” “No, no! Not a word. It is too late sow!" “True." says Lady Swansdown, bringing back the arms she had extended and totting them fall with a sudden dull vehemence to her sides. Her agitation is uncontrolled. "That was so long ago that, no doubt, you have forgotten all about it. You,” bitterly, “have forgotten a good deal.” “And you,” says Lady’ Baltimore, very calmly, “what have you not forgotten—your self-respect,” deliberately, “among •ther things.” “Take care, take care!” says Lady Swansdown, in a low tone. She has turned furiously. “Why should I take care?” She throws up her small head scornfully. “Have 1 said one word too much?” “Too much, indeed.” says Lady Swansdown, distinctly, but faintly. She turns her head, but not her eyes, in Isabel’s direction. “I’m afraid you will have to endure for one day longer,” she says in a tow voice; “after that you shall bid me a farewell forever.” “You have come to a wise decision,” ■ays Lady Baltimore, immovably. There is something so contemptuous in her whole bearing that it maddens the •ther. “How dare you speak to me like that?” cries she, with sudden violence not to be repressed. "You of all others! Do you think you are not in fault at all—that you stand blameless l>efore the world?’ The blood has flamed into her pale cheeks, her eyes are on fire. She advances toward Lady Baltimore with such ■ passion of angry despair in look and tone that involuntarily the latter retreats before her. “Who shall blame me?” demands Lady Baltimore, haughtily. “I—l for one! Icicle that you are, how can you know what love means? You have no heart to feel, no longing to forgive. And what has be done to you? Nothing—nothing that any other woman would not gladly condone.” “You are a partisan,” says Lady Baltimore, eoldly. “You would plead his cause, •nd to me! You are violent, but that does not put you in the right. What do you know of Baltimore that I do not know? By what right do you defend him?’ “There is such a thing as friendship!” “la there?’ says the other with deep ■leaning. “Is there, Beatrice? Oh! think —think!” A little bitter smile curls the corners of her Ups. “That you should advocate the cause of friendship to me,” says fihe, her words falling with cruel scorn one by one slowly from her lips. “You think me false,” says Lady Swansdown. She is terribly agitated. “There was an old friendship between us —I know that-*-1 feel it. You think me altogether false to it?* “I think of you as little as I can help,” •ays Isabel, contemptuously. “Why should 1 waste a thought on you ?’ “True! Why, indeed! One so capable of controlling her emotions as you are weed never give way to superfluous or uaeleaa thoughts. Still, give one to Baltimose. It to our last conversation together. therefore bear with me— hear me. All ktoainsfleto dsepast. He-j-” “You must le mad to tnlk to me like thtok” interrupts Isabii, flushiag crimson. I .'-I.

“Has he asked you to intercede for him? Could even he go so far us that? Is it a last insult? What are you to him that you thus adopt his cause? Answer me!” cries she, imperiously; all her coldness, her stern determination to suppress herself, seems broken up. “Nothing!” returns Lady Swansdown, becoming calmer as she notes the other’s growing vehemence. “I never shall be anything. I have but one excuse for my interference-—” She pauses. “And that?" “I love him!” steadily, but faintly. Her eyes have sought the ground. “Ah!” says Lady Baltimore. “it is true,” slowly. “It is equally true —that he—does not love me. Let me, then, speak. AH his sins, believe me, lie behind him. That woman, that friend of yours, who you of his renewed acquaintance With Madame Istray, lied to you. There was no truth in what she said!” “I can quite understand your not wishing to believe in that story,” says Lady Baltimore, with an undisguised sneer. “Like nil good women, you can take pleasure in inflicting a wound,” says Lady Swansdown. controlling herself admirably. “But do not let your detestation of me blind yon to the fact that my words contain truth. If you will listen I can—” “Not a word,” says Lady Baltimore, making a movement with her hands as if to efface the other. “I will have none of your confidences.” “It seems to me”—quickly—"you are determined not to believe.” “You are at liberty to think as you will.” “The time may come,” says Lady Swansdown, 1 “when you will regret you did not listen to me to-day.” “Is that a threat?” “No; but I nm going. There will be no further opportunity for you to hear me.” “You must pardon me if 1 say that I am glad of that.” says Lady Baltimore, her lips very white. “1 could have borne little more. Do what you rill, go where you will, with whom you ,11" —with deliberate insult—“but at least spare me a repetition of such a scene as this.” She turns, and with an indescribably haughty gesture leaves the room.

CHAPTER XVII. Dancing is going on in the small drawing room. Lady Swansdown hardly understands herself to-night. That scene with her hostess has upset her mentally and bodily and created, in her a wild desire to get away from herself, and from Baltimore at any cost. Some idle freak has induced her to use Beauclerk as a safeguard from both, and he, unsettled in his own mind and eager to come to conclusions with Joyce and her fortune, has lent himself to the wiles of his whilom foe, and is charmed by her fascinating, if vagrant, mood. Perhaps in all her life Lady Swatlsdown lias never looked so lovely as tonight. Excitement and mental disturbance have lent a dangerous brilliancy to her eyes, a touch of color to her cheek. There is something electric about her that touches those who gaze on her and warns herself that a crisis is at hand, In a way she has clung to Beauclerk as a moans of escaping Baltimore—throwing out a thousand wiles to charm him to her side, and succeeding. Three times she had given a smiling “No!” to Lord Baltimore’s demand for a dance, and. regardless of opinion, had flung herself into a wild and open flirtation with Beauclerk. But it is growing toward midnight, and her strength is failing her. These people, will they never go? Will she never be able to seek her own room, and solitude, and despair, without calling down comment on her head, and giving Isabel—that cold woman—the clfance of sneering at her weakness? A sudden sense of the uselessness of it all has taken possession of her; her heart sinks. It is at this moment that Baltimore once more comes up to her. “This dance?’ says he. “It is half way through. You are not engaged, I suppose, as you are sitting down? May I have whnt remains of it?” She makes a little gesture of acquiescence, and, rising, places her hand upon his arm. The crisis has come, she tells herself, with a rather grim smile. Well, better have it and get it over. That there had been a violent scene between Baltimore and his wife after dinner had somehow become known to her, and the marks of it still betrayed themselves in the former’s frowning brow and somber eyes. It had been more of a scene than usual. Lady Baltimore, generally so calm, had for once lost herself, and given way to a passion of indignation that had shaken her to her very heart’s core. Though so apparently unmoved and almost insolent in her demeanor toward Lady Swansdown during their interview, she had been, nevertheless, cruelly wounded by it, and could not forgive Baltimore in that he had been its cause. “I didn’t think you and Beauclerk had anything in common,” says Baltimore, seating himself beside her on the low lounge that is half hidden from the public gaze by the Indian curtains that fall at each side of it. He had made no pretense of finishing the dance. He had led the way and she had suffered herself to be led into tbe small ante-room that, half smothered in early spring flowers, lay off the dancing room. “Ah! you see you have yet much to learn ■bout me,” says she, with an attempt at gaycty—which fails, however. "About you? No!” says he, almost defiantly. “Don’t tell me I have deceived myself about you, Beatrice; you are all I have left to fall back upon now.” His tone to reckless to the last degree. “What is it. Cyril?’ looking at him with sudden intent nees. “Something has happened. What?’ “The old story,” returns he, “and I am sick of it. I have thrown up my hand. I rould have been faithful to her, Beatrice. ■wear* that, but she does not care for mj devotion. And as for me* now ”

He throws out his arms as if tired to death, and draws in his breath heavily. “Now?” says she, leaning forward. “Am I worth your acceptance?’ says he, turning sharply to her. “I hardly dare to think it, and yet you have been kind to me, and your own lot is not a happy, and ” He pauses. “Do you hesitate?” asks she, very bitterly, although her pale lips are smiling. “Will you risk it all?’ says he, sadly. “Will you come away with me? 1 feel 1 have no friend on earth but you. Will you take pity on me? I shall not stay here, whatever happens; I have striven against fate too long—it has overcome me. Another land—a different life—complete forgetfulness ” “Do you know what you are saying?” asks Lady Swansdown, deathly white. “Yes; I have thought it all out. It is for you now to decide. 1 have sometimes thought I was not entirely indifferent to you, and at all events we are friends in the best sense of the term. If you were a happily married woman, Beatrice, I should not speak to you like this, but as it is—in another land—if you will come with me—we ” “Think, think!” says she. putting up her hand to stay him from further speech. “All this is said in a moment of angry excitement. You have called me your friend —and truly. I am so far in touch with- you that I can see you are very unhappy. You have had—forgive me if I probe you—but yon have had some —some words with your wife?” . “Final words! I hope—l think.” “I do not, however. All this will blow over, and—come, Cyril, face it. Are you really prepared to deliberately break the last link that holds you to her?” “There is no link. She has cut herself adrift long since. She will be be rid of me.” “And you—will you be glad to be rid of her?” “It will be better,” says he, shortly. “And—tho boy?” “Don’t let us go into it,” a little wildly. “Oh! but we must—we must,” says she. “The boy—you will ?” “I shall leave him to her. lam nothing to her. I cannot leave her desolate.” “How you consider her!” says she, in a choking voice. She could have burst into tears! “What a heart! and that woman to treat him so —while —oh! it is hard—hard!” “I tell you,” says she, presently, “that you have not gone into this thing. Tomorrow you will regret all that you have now said.” “If you refuse me —yes. It lies in your hands now. Are you going to refuse me?” “Give me a moment,” says she, faintly. She has risen to her feet, and is so standing that he cannot watch her. Her whole soul is convulsed. Shall she? Shall she not? The scales are trembling. That woman’s face! How it rises before her now’, pale, cold, contemptuous. With what an insolent air she had almost ordered her from her sight. And yet—and yet Oh! A groan that is almost a sob breaks from her. The'scale has gone down to one side. It is all over, hope and love and joy. Isabel has won. She has been leaning against the arm of the lounge, now she once more sinks back upon the seat as though standing is impossible to her. “Well?” says Baltimore, laying his hand gently upon hers. His touch seems to bur* her, she flings his hand from her and shrinks back. “You have decided,” says he, quickly. “You will not come with me?” “Oh! no, no, no!” cries she. “It is impossible!” A little curious laugh breaks from her that is cruelly akin to a cry. “Yon like her better than you like me. You are angry with your wife, and would be-revenged upon her, and your w’ay to revenge yourself is to make a second woman hate you.” “A second?” “I should probably hate you in six months,” says she, with a touch of passion. “I am not sure that Ido not hate you now.” “A second woman!” repeats he, ai..if struck by this thought to the exclusion of all others. “Yes!” “You think, then,” gazing at her, “that she—hates me?” Lady Swansdown breaks into a low but mirthless laugh. The most poignant anguish rings through it. “She! she!” cries she, as if unable to control herself, and then stops suddenly, placing her hand to her forehehd. “Oh, no, she doesn’t hate you,” she says. “But how you betray yourself! Do you wonder I laugh? Did ever any man so give himself away? You have been declaring to me for months that she hates you, yet when I put it into w’ords, or you think I do, it seems as though some fresh, new evil had befallen you. Ah! give up this role of Don Juan, Baltimore. It doesn’t suit you.” He would have spoken to her again, but she rejects the idea with such bitterness that he is necessarily silent. She has covered her face with her hands. Presently she is alone. (To lie continued.)