People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1893 — ALITTLE COMEDY OF ERRORS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALITTLE COMEDY OF ERRORS

By SSMORTON.

{Copyrighted, 1891, by S. S. Morton, and published by special arrangement.] CHAPTER XVI. — Continued. He had just entered upon the quiet vista of Delaplaine street, absorbed in his own interesting reflections, when his attention was idly directed toward a gentleman in an invalid’s chair which an attentive valet was slowly pushing along the pavement. The thin, shrunken figure in its rich attire, sparkling with diamonds and resplendent in fine linen, attracted perhaps rather more than a casual attention from North, whose mind was impressed by the painful contrast between the abject wretchedness of the invalid’s face and the pomp and splendor of his outward circumstances. Helpless and suffering, he was evidently not one whom the severe discipline of physical affliction had softened and refined; it was but too obvious that here was a mind as warped and diseased as its frail tenement. The expression of his face betrayed a harsh, selfish nature exaggerated almost to a grotesque degree by years of self-indulgence. He appeared to be constantly on the alert "to discover something that he might construe into a grievance. The querulous glance of his restless eyes, the sneering curl of his thin lips under a fierce iron-gray mustache, forestalled all words, and were a sufficient warning to persons of acute penetration not to give him the provocation for which he was evidently watching to give way to violent and aggressive wrath. North was passing this gentleman with the speculative but courteous glance of a perfect stranger, when to his utter amazement he was accosted in the most peremptory manner. The wheel chair was brought to a sudden halt, while a petulant voice uttered the startling challenge: “North, you jackanapes! What do you mean, sir? Do you intend to insult me?”

North was electrified. What had he done? Who was this interesting invalid?

“Some one, evidently, whom I ought to know,” he thought, “and whom it will be awkward and unfortunate to offend. What can Ido to pacify him?” Then, lifting his hat as he turned back to the gentleman, North said, with an apologetic air: “My dear sir, I beg your pardon. I was preoccupied, and did not recognize you at all.” This statement, although offered with charming frankness and suavity, was quite thrown away upon the deeply offended gentleman. “Oh, don't tell me!” he cried with angry emphasis, looking at North with his shrunken sallow face suffused with a purple flush, and his small black eyes flashing resentful fire. “Your iwonderful harangue last night turned your head, I presume. Preoccupied, were

you? Didn’t see me, eh? Heavens and earth, sir, that’s false! It was a piece of deliberate impertinence, North, and you know it You’re carrying a high hand just now, young man; oh, yqs, a very high hand, but we’ll see how long it will continue! My patience will not last forever. Heavens and earth, be the mischief to pay one of these days! You don’t hoodwink me so neatly after all, Mr. North; I’m not the shallow dupe that you take me to be!” “Well, upon my life, what mad, raving maniac is this?” thought North, blankly; then, rallying from his amazement he said, calmly: “I beg your pardon, sir, you are under an. entire misapprehension. I have no motive or desire to hoodwink you, and so far as my transactions have any connection with yourself they are open to your inspection. And now, sir,” he added, sternly, checking the torrent of abusive words that he plainly perceived to be imminent, “I beg leave to end this colloquy. You have a claim upon my forbearance; otherwise I should require

you to apologize for the language in which you have just indulged. Good morning, sir.” It will readily be understood that the effect of this encounter was not tranquilizing, and there were superficial traces of annoyance in North’s face and manner when, a few moments later, he entered Mrs. Maynard’s dfawing-room. He had not inquired if Mrs. Maynard were disengaged, rather indolently taking it for granted that she would be; and he was very much annoyed to find that lady occupied with morning visitors. Mrs. Maynard was one of the few ladies in X who found it expedient to hold morning receptions; and this happened to beher “day.” North felt extremely awkward on discovering that he had intruded a purely business call upon a social hour; but before he could excuse himself and withdraw—indeed before he was able to decide whether or not this would be his better course—he was seized upon, figuratively, by the entire drawing-room and retreat was impossible. Finding that he was intimately acquainted with everyone present, he entered with measurable agreeableness into the' current of small talk, inwardly hoping that none of his friends Would notice the circumstance that neither when he first addressed them, nor in his subsequent conversation, did he call any of them by name.

He seized an opportunity to speak a few words to Mrs. Maynard in private, during the course of The conversation had turned upon a wonderful cactus which the gardener had just induced to bloom for the first time. Everyone had seen it, except North; and t with the same exception everyone was going into raptures about it. North immediately became enthusiastic on the subject, for the cactus was in the conservatory, beyond the reach of the sharpest eyes or ears in the draw-ing-room. “Mrs. Maynard,” he exclaimed, turning to that lady with an air of mock appeal, “my happiness depends upon my seeing that cactus! Will you favor me to this extent?”

With some laughing rejoinder she led the way to the conservatory, which opened from the drawing-room, and a moment later they stood alone in the warm, moist, perfume-laden place, with great banks of tropical plants, wide-spreading palms and stately cannas casting a delicate green twilight around them and a soft, dreamy silence pervading the fragrant gloom. North duly examined the cactus and expressed the proper degree of admiration; then turning quickly to Mrs. Maynard, While his manner changed from the superficial suavity that he had adopted for the drawing-room to a portentous gravity, he said, in a low tone: “Mrs. Maynard, I have something of great importance to tell you. You will be surprised perhaps disagreeably. Shall I speak now, or wait until some other time?”

She was tearing the petals from a great crimson-hearted rose, and she did not look up; but the slight tremor of the languid white fingers betrayed to him the nervous agitation against which her pride and will were contending with only partial success. “You may speak now, Mr. North.”. Then, wearily: “Why should you wait? It is no worse atone time than another.” “True, Mrs. Maynard; and certainty, however unwelcome it may be, is always more easily borne than suspense. In one word, then —Annie Dupont has been discovered.” The soft color in her cheeks died out quickly in the surprise that she felt at this announcement, and for an instant her eyes lifted themselves to his with a half incredulous inquiry. “You did not expert this, Mr. North?” she questioned, quietly, p. curious reserve in her manner which made him vaguely conscious of having lost ground with her since their last interview. The intimation was too subtle and slight for him to be able to seize upon it and definitely assign a cause; but, had not his affairs been shaping themselves so satisfactorily within the last few days, it would have occasioned him infinite uneasiness.

“Expect it?” he repeated, with a short expressive laugh. “No more than Annie Dupont herself! I can scarcely use a stronger comparison. It’s the strangest case, Mrs. Maynard, one of those that prove the statement that truth is stranger than fiction. I have not yet been able to lay my hands on the documents which will prove her identity, and establish her legal claims as Mrs. Dunkirk’s niece and heir; but that these documents exist I have proof as cleA- as the noon-day, and I confidently expect within the next twelve hours to have those papers securely in my possession.” Absently breaking off a bit of pale blue heliotrope that was reaching out temptingly toward him over the mass of fragrant blossoms, he put it carelessly in his buttonhole' as he spoke these last words. “Does this proof come through the man who called here a few days ago?” inquired Mrs. the same reserve and in a specuWtive tone. Her fingers were still busy with their work of destruction; her eyes idly watched the great crimson petals fluttering to their death.

“O’Reilly?” North smiled a little, with his eyes fixed in sharp but baffled scrutiny upon her coldly unresponsive face. “Yes, through him. I could take him into court to-day, with two or three other persons who are equally within reach, and by his sworn testimony, without the aid of any documentary evidence whatever, establish Annie Dupont’s identity so thoroughly that no combination nor conspiracy against her could possibly overthrow it; but for her sake I prefer to wait for the corroborative testimony that those documents' contain. There will surely be but a few hours’ longer delay.” He was unconscious of the warmth in his words and manner until he was awakened to the fact by the cold, surprised inquiry in Mrs. Maynard’s suddenly lifted eyes. “You are singularly enthusiastic, Mr. North,” she said, slowly, holding her gaze steadily, while North, with mo-

mentary discomfiture, felt himself flushing a little under its cold accusation. “You leave me no possible inference but that your most ardebt wish is to establish this identity. May I ask if your sudden interest in this hitherto unknown heiress is purely professional?”

He did not, at that moment, fathom the suspicion in her mind, but he vaguely caught its superficial significance. A curious little smile crossed his face, then a perfect inscrutability veiled its whole expression. Mrs. Maynard, observing him with sharp intentness, felt all the shock of a sudden and unexpected repulse. She had knocked at a door that had instantly been double-barred and locked against her. “As for that, Mrs. Maynard,” North rejoined, after a moment’s pause, his manner light and jesting, “so long as the lawyer is also a man, it is not always possible to disassociate his personal and professional feelings. If they don’t antagonize each other, they generally become merged, you know.” “Especially where a young and beautiful heiress is concerned,” suggested Mrs. Maynard, with quiet bitterness. “Why do you think that Annie Dupont merits that description, Mrs. Maynard?” demanded North, teasingly. “Were we speaking of Annie Dupont?” returned Mrs. Maynard, with a frigidly polite stare. “Your questioii implies a degree of self-consciousness, Mr. North. But pray excuse me; I cannot leave my friends any longer. I have been absent from the drawing-room too long already. Understand me distinctly, Mr. North,” she added, facing him proudly for an instant with a brilliant cdlor in her cheeks and a deflantlight in her dark brown eyes, “I am sincerely glad to hear of Annie Dupont’s good fortune, and I congratulate yon with all my heart on having been the disinterested means of bringing about this happy result!” North Confusedly murmured his thanks and turned to follow her to the drawing-room. He felt amused, annoyed, and on the whole rather disappointed in this interview. It had developed absolutely nothing to his practical advantage, while it had suggested a whole train of baffling speculations; and to crown all, he had a harassing suspicion that in this passage-at-arms with Mrs. Maynard he had not figured so creditably as he could have desired. But he had no opportunity to indulge his slight chagrin on this account, for the instant he reentered the drawingroom he received a shock that drove all these less important matters from his mind for the time. At the further end of the long draw-ing-room, talking to a garrulous old dowager in eye-glasses, who had evidently captured her upon her first appearance in the room, stood a young lady—yes, the very same whom he had seen with Mrs. Maynard in the carriage.

She was tall and slight, with a proud, delicate face, whose exquisite fairness was accentuated by the soft clinging crape of a rich mourning dress. She was beautiful enough to make a sensation in any social assembly, yet so icily cold that all words of admiration would freeze upon the most ardent lips. There were many who, observing her in different moods, fancied that beneath this ice throbbed a warm heart that had suffered as only the heart of a proud, loving woman can; but of this the serene brow and lips gave no sign. N orth stood transfixed for a moment as if oblivious of the presence of others, unconscious of the emotions that his face was betraying. All doubt was gone from his mind. Even if he could have questioned the direct evidence of his own eyes, he received convincing proof in the cold recognition that her proud glance expressed as it rested upon him for an instant. It was not such a glance as a perfect stranger, however indifferent toward him she might feel, would bestow; under all its hauteur a flash, of passion lay—scorn, contempt, unforgiving resentment, which told of the pre-existence of some kindlier sentiment. In answer to the look that she met from his eyes a scornful little smile flitted over her lips, and, bowing very slightly in recognition of his presence, she deliberately turned away to avoid any further notice of him, and continued the conversation which had suffered no break in consequence of- this little by-play. So quickly,had the mutual recognition taken place that only one person in the drawing-room besides the two most intimately concerned had taken cognizance of the fact. Mrs. Maynard had spoken twice to North and he had not heard her; but when, suddenly recalled to his surroundings, and the fact that he must behave sanely while he was under the scrutiny of so many curious eyes, he turned toward her with an effort to resume his usual manner and expression, she was saying in a low, satirical tone:

“You seem to take a strange interest in Miss Hilary this morning, Mr. North. May I suggest that your manner is a little—just a little, perhaps—noticeable?” North flushed deeply; he had not yet regained his self-possession, as his hurriedly uttered words proved. “I have seen Miss Hilary before, Mrs. Maynard. We are quite old friends,” he said. The mockery in Mrs. Maynard’s smile instantly changed to something else not quite translatable, but suggesting utter disbelief in his statement. “Indeed!” she said, coldly. “No one would have suspected this from your manner of meeting her here two weeks ago.” “My ihanner of meeting her —” North abruptly checked the indignant disclaimer, adding, desperately: “There has been a misunderstanding, Mrs. Maynard, which I cannot explain now, but in a few days more I shall be at liberty to speak. In the meantime —will you not pity rather than condemn?” It was an involuntary appeal wrung from him by the fear that before he could have an opportunity to plead his cause before Myra some malign fate might interpose and separate them again. If he regarded Mrs. Maynard as the impersonation of that fate his heart must have failed him, for marble

could not have been more cold less as she turned away from him with the words:

“Unless you deserve condemnation, you surely do not require pity. Your request law confession, Mr. North.” She left nhr. then, in order to receive some one who had just entered the drawing-room; and Norths reviving as if from the effects of a sudden dash of cold water, found his wits sufficiently to resolve upon an immediate departure. He had succeeded, after waiting a few moments for the opportunity, in making his adieus to Mrs. Maynard.and had reached the drawing-room door when Williams confronted him with a message. “Maj. Maynard’s compliments,” he said, bowing low, “and will Mr. North please come up to the major's study for a few moments?” ■ •

It flashed upon North’s mind instantly that there must not appear in his manner the slightest hesitancy about complying with this request, and he therefore assented at once; but he was in no enviable state of mind as he followed Williams up the broad staircase. Oddly enough he had never calculated upon the probability of his being compelled to meet Maj. Maynard, and he

had not prepared his mind for such an emergency. He had no time now to do more than to rally his self-possession and nerve himself to meet the unexpected in whatever shape it might present itself to him, falling back upon a measurably clear conscience as a sustaining factor. The major’s “study”—so-called, although there was nothing in the appointments of that luxurious den or in the occupations daily pursued within its four walls to warrant such a designation—was situated near the first landing of the winding stairway. [TO BIC CONTINUED.]

THE WHEEL CHAIR WAS BROUGHT TO A SUDDEN HALT.

TALKING TO A GARRULOUS OLD DOWAGER.