South Bend News-Times, Volume 36, Number 188, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 7 July 1919 — Page 4

The End of the Last Dance

By Abncr Anthony

rp ""Tl Y friend. if you have v V- 1 never seen San RefAt 1 ' co la the spring

time, your life Is as yet Incomplete. It ö w v&rl 18 thn that wo of frfVe- the Italian Riviera iKJKrJ really exist. Dlo! 1, ,., .g It Is Quite futile to describe It on can only lire It. Let tt rtrfnee, however, when I eay the Mediterranean ! never as blue as It is then, air is nerer so aoft, so eweet or the flowers bo brilliant. It is Paradise, my friend, a garden of lore where birds ninr from dawn to twilight Mario De Stefanl played first violin In the orchestra, of the Hotel Bella Vista. He was a thin, undersized youth, with a profusion of black, curly fcalr and pale, oral face of the musician and student. lie was born, J beliere, near Naples, and like the majority of young Italians of the present day, an excellent musician. Music to Mario was like the lore of a beautiful womanhe lived for it alone, at first. Ah, but you should hare heard him play his violin solo to the supper crowd at the. Bella Vista. Dlo mio! the bow between his thin, white Angers held them spellbound. And when he finished, my friend, the applause was deafening. Early In May, Signore Itodolfo, the stout and amiable proprietor of the hotel, sent to Faris for two or three cabaret performers. He did this very much against his will and at the earnest request of his foreign guests, American and English, who were unhappy unless they had a vaudeville entertainment to give zest to their meals. My friend, it was an evil day when Itodolfo listened to them. I will tell you why. There was sent to San Itemo. Sonla Riberia, & dancer from the Palais Music Hall in Paris, which had closed its H, John, darlint, that will not be the way to the hotel! Coom this way, thjs minute, you with the two feet av ye like mud cakes, for cause you wouldn't be after mindin'

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- your Maria at the creek!" Maria Maher, a gray haired, slender ' woman in black, seised the chubby hand of John Hartwell Nugent, Jr., tut the five-year-old poked out a cunalngly Impudent red lip, and, twisting loose from her fingers, ran down the IJttla street in front of the resort town's railroad station. One end of the porch of the third tmpainted house on the next narrow street waa crowded with rustic ware Hog cabin" bird houses, hexagon ahaped hanging baskets, cases and chairs. In a hanging basket, depending from the celling, some red brown leaves of shamrock grew thrifty, and from its handle a bit of faded green ribbon dangled, fluttering in the breeze. The child ran up the steps. "What-c&u-mak!n?" be demanded In his soft

HAT appeared to have once been a magnificent old mansion had. through the reaches of commercialism, been turr.ed into a Vii't llttl mart 1VOVMJ The old house had become a candy shop. Beside the door dwelt a black and gilt sign. 'Ye Olde Colonial Candy Shoppe." Nothing more ")r less. More was not needed, for everybody in the old coast town knew the quality of the candy behind that sign. Much of the candy was made in the rooms beul the shop by an old candymaker and his wife, who also lived there. Mary mer and her mother occupied the rooms upstairs. Mrs. Oarner was almost aa invalid, but she managed to get the meals and do a little dusting, and pometimes when Mary had to go out she came down and sat behind the counter. Mary tended shop and a great many times people who did not care much for candy went in there just to see her. Not because she was beautiful were they

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doors for the season. Mademoiselle Rlberla was exceedingly good to look upon. Her skin was so dlfTerent from that of the girls of Genoa and Nice. Her lips you can see I well remember were a vivid scarlet, and wonderfully curved. When she danced, I can never forget it, her lithe, young body swayed to the melody of the string like a Joy-Intoxicated fairy dancing in the moonlight. Ah. but she was exquisite, peerless! There were many who quickly realized this, and Mario was one of them. The young man from Naples la all of his twenty-four years bad nerer seen anyone like her. The first night she appeared, costumed for her dance, be sat staring at her, over his musicrack, with parted lips. It was as if he were gazing upon s beautiful vision, and when she danced, his subjugation was complete. That night, high up under the roof of the great hotel, he fell asleep with her name on his Hps. Sonla craved admiration. When she saw the violinist of the Bella Vista's orchestra was casting adoring eyes upon her. she responded with heavylidded glances and demure little smiles that acted like champagne upon his romantic imagination. The dancer missed her Paris and anjthing in the way of a flirtation she welcomed at the momtnt Mario, poor lad, did not know this. How could he? He thourht his passion was being returned, and when 1 1; kissed her for the first time, one afternoon in the Roman Gardens, back of the hotel, all the worship in his Latin blood flared up. "Adorata!" he murmured madly. "You will love me, always as I love you! You will love m forever eternamente! Say it, swear it, plccina mla!" Sonla, a little frightened, but thrilled by his ardor, laughed lightly.

treble of the man who sat working at a bench, a cunningly put together thing of laurel and rhodendron branches, and gnarled and twisted roots. "Oh, John, darlint!' protested the panting Maria. "You will be after pardonin' his impudence, sor 'tis many a day he is from a man yet!" The worker, an alert little man of sixty, with limpid blue eyes, turned. "Sure," he protested, with an engaging smile, "is ut that I look like a body that does not know a child from a grown-up?' ' When Maria returned in the dusk, with her charge, to the Mountain View, where on their way home from Florida little John's parents had stopped for the month of March, to play golf and bridge, she had tucked in her belt a bit of shamrock and her eyes were brighter than the stars beginning to come out over the mountain. It had been so long since she had talked with any one of her own age from the "old sod," and old Michael Bowers, the rustic furniture maker, understood and appreciated the things of her youth. Very early the next morning after

Changes Wrought by

curious concerning her although she had looks that many a woman who owned a yacht and a limousine and a summer place might have envied but because she who had ence been rich and a belle and had come of one of the oldest families in the state was now presiding orer a candy shop in the very town where her haughty ancestors lived. Mary knew this, but she sold them candy as calmly as if she did not. Nothing could undo her composure. She had made one swift step from the past to the present in Ye Olde Colonial Candy Shoppe. Misfortune, had overtaken her in a night She had been in the height of her happiness; her debut still a topic of conversation; her engagement to Nicholas French Just announced, when her father shot himself and precipitated the ruin of his affairs. The shock nearly killed Mary's mother, but Mary herself was braver. When she found that everything they had in the world belonged to somebody else and that the man she believed In had forsaken her and that her own head and hands must provide every bit of bread she ate in the future as well as

"Saperlotte!" she answered, "of course. Have I not said it already, m'aicu? Hare I not proved it!" For the five weeks that followed, the youth lived in a heaven of his own making. Sonla, flatjered at the worship and devotion that was hers, returned his love-making with all the acting she could conjure up for the occasion. When he clasped her to him and held against his heart, she even thrilled a little, and the kisses he snatched from her were flavored with the sunshine of the Riviera and as earnest as she could possibly make tbem. Ah, those moon-silvered nights of San Remo! They are made, only for love, my friend, and no one knew this better than Mario. They were the happiest he had ever known or could know. Then the Inevitable occurred. Little by little glamour of it all faded away and Sonia failed to respond. The kisses she gave him were hurried. When he held her, she freed herself, gently but deftly. Poor Mario, none of this did he realize. To him ehe was still the exquisite creature his first love adored by him and adoring in turn. Too soon, alas, was ho to awaken from his dream. There carae to the Bella Vista the wealthy Barone Antonl Scotti. from Rome, a short, stout Italian nobleman, broned by the sun of two continents and living only for the pleasure and enjoyment life yielded him. It chanced he had met the Riberia in Paris, the season before and his delight In seeing her again was touching. After her dance, that evening, at his table in a secluded corner of the din-ing-hall they resumed their acquaintance over a bottle of champagne, while Mario waited in the fragrant gloom of the gardens below and wondered why she did not appear. "Well, mla eara." the Barone said.

their visit to the rustic furniture man little John reminded her, "The stick man said I could go on the mountain with him when he went for more sticks this morning, Maria!" To his surprise Maria needed no urging. The little company had climbed more than two miles up the mountain road, past groves of laurel and patches of rhodendron before Bowers began to cut out his sticks and roots. "Sure, there be plinty of shrubbery all along," Maria wondered. "Why not get the timber closer by the town?" Bowers laughed. "Plinty, indade, frind. but the closeby mountain sides belong to the man that owr.se the hotel where ye and the chHd's people do be stopping. And these rich wans won't let you get a twig off their lands; no, not even if they have no use for it theirsc'fs at all at all! So I gather my wood aff a frind's lands up here." "Tis the way they do things in Ireland, too," remarked Maria. Bowers smiled grimly. "There were lakes close where I were born and lived to my twlnticth year, with many a meal o' fish in 'era, and my father and my mother llvin on pitaturs the year every necessity for her feeble mother, she stood up and squared her shoulders to the burden. The candy shop was an inspiration. She rented the old Doubleday house, whose situation made it desirable, and opened her business. A single season made her candy famous. One day a most beautiful yacht came Into the harbor. From the narrow street that twisted past Ye Olden Colonial Candy Shoppe Mary caw the funnel and spars and snapping pennon of the vessel. Somehow she thought of Nicholas French; he had almost passed from her mind as from her existence. The last she had heard of him he had gone yachting round the world. She as not disconcertingly surprised when that afternoon eh turned from her shelves to see him standing at her counter, the same courtly gentleman with the same selfish heart. "How do you do, Mary?" he said, and held out his hand. She gave him her finger briefly. "Fine little place you have here! You're looking well. How is your mother's health 7" He was embarrassed. Mary smiled a little.

filling her glass, himself, "we meet again in Ban Remo after many months. It Is well. I had expected to remain here but one week then Monte Carlo" "Qui? And nowr He leaned across the table. "And now," he answered, "I shall stay until until you leave!" "It has been very nice here," ßonia said pensively, "but I shall be glad to go. Dleu! one wearies of & plaee, after a time, does one not?" The Barone Inclined bis heavy head. "Certamente!" he answered heartily. "In your case, the .case of one so charming. I would advise Venice . . . A gondolier on & moonlight night ... you and I ... eh, Signorina!!" It did not take very long for Mario to understand how matters stood. How could ho help it? Scotti tagged at her heels like a fat and faithful watch-dog and his Infatuation was common talk along the broad, white verandas of the Bella Vista. Indeed, Signore Rodolfo had to take the Riberia aIde and caution her to be more discreet. It did not look good, he said, to conduct a flirtation with a guest so openly. She laughed and promised. My friend, when a woman" has two strings to her bow, and when these same two tring3 come in contact, there Is sure to be a discord. Is that not true? It was this way with the Barone end Mario, who, innocent of women's wiles, suspected nothing of Sonia and thought Scotti was trying to steal her from him. He went to the Barone's suite, one morning and confronted him. "The lore of Sonia Riberia is mine," he declared quietly. "She is not for ycu, sua altczza. Be advised, please, of this fact." Th; Barone looking up from his morning paper stared in amazement, unable to credit what his ears had

round! The landlord were kapln thim lakes for hla sportin' frinds. Sure, didn't I pass part o' me time in prison fer fishin an thim Jakes! "Tis the fine bold lad ye must ha been!" commented Maria. Bowers laid down his grubbing hoe and looked at her with a whimsical smile. "Sure, Michael Flanagan Bowers is the fine, bold lad yet, and ye know him well, and when the loneliness is not pressin' on him! Since I'm not young any more, and can't travel aisy from place to place, from wan state to another, I've got me a home to stay in, but sometimes I'm tho lonely wan!" " Tis me that's tired of the travelin'!" commented Maria. "But a noorse must go with thim she's workln' fer, an the rich ones must be eternally chasln' the warrum in winter and the cool in summer. You'd think they lived in prison houses, the little time they kape to their homes. Sure, I think 'tis fine to have a home to stay in, and had I a' pot of gold I'd buy me one! "There's a crock of gold behint a deep pool in Donegal,' obsenred Bowers, "that'd buy many a home!"

Misfortune

"Mother is frail, but cheerful, thank you." ' "Quaint idea, this shop!" French went on. "Mary" Another customer entered and then another. He had no chance to say more. So he bought a box of salted almonds and went away. But Mary knew that he would come again. She did not want him to come again. He was not changed, but she waa materially. She wondered how she had ever come to engage herself to him. It was not because he was rich, for then she had no need to covet riches. It could not have been because she lored him. Girls are such fools," she thought. "He was romance itself to me. But he hadn't a spark of heroism in him. When trouble came he failed me. He went away and then he wrote that letter, so carefully worded, and yet I knew what he meant. He wished me to free him. And I did. I was more disgusted than heartbroken. No, I certainly did not love him. and I love him less now, because I see him more plainly. I would not trade my candy shop and present security for all he possesses. But, then, I shall

heard. Then, at last when he finally did understand, the room shook with his mirth, "Insect," he said, wiping the tears from his eyes, "report at once to Rodolfo and tell him I say your salaryis to be doubled. You hare given me the best laugh I have had in twelve years!" Mario's face whitened and his voice, when he spoke, trembled. "You have heard! If yon persist I shall be compelled to to M "Continue, by all mean?," Scotti said, as the young man hisltated to moisten his dry Hps. "Your conversation is enjoyable." Mario looked at him gravely. ' "You see fit to Jest. Very wellif you force your unwelcome attentions on Signorina Riberia, in the future. I shall have to kill you!" When he closed the door the Barone was still laughing. Later, Mario met Sonla in the pergola at the water's edge and told her what he bad informed the Barone. "And," he concluded, "if he troubles you, I shall do what I have jald." "Mon Dieu!" the dancer cried, angrily. "Why did you say such a thing? He is my friend, my good friend! I knew Mm in Paris before I knew you! You have insulted him!" Mario silenced her with a gesture. "That is true, but you have heard what they are saying," he replied, indicating the hotel back of them, with a motion cf his hand. "I can not allow such talk." Sonla Jumped up. "You can not allow It!" she said harshly, emphasizing her words with a stamp of her foot, "and who are you to prevent mc from continuing my friendship with him!" Mario steadied himself against the balcony rail. "But but they say he loves you!"

Maria sighed. "Don't I wish that crock of gold were in these two hands of mine "I'll go get the crock of gold fer you, Maria," little John made generous offer. "But the water In the pool it's deep, deep down, little man," objected Bowers. "Not over Maria's head?" persisted John. "She could wade and get it herself." "It's over Maria's head, an beyont the pool's a great make, a hundred feet long, that lies by the crock day and night." "I don't want the old snake to get Maria!" wailed John. "Hush, mavourneen, there is no snake and no gold! You must have been a fennachie in Ireland, the way you tell tales here," she said to Bowers. "Would you believe me, an I told you a tale that you might some day get a home, an' ye wanted it, without money and without pnee?" he asked. That evening when Maria'f charge wasaslcep she bent over him with wistful tenderness. "For all you're a terror the times," she whispered, "this never have the chance." That evening after the shop was closed and her mother had retired and the old candy workers had gone to sit beside their lamp. Mary went into the garden of the old Doubleday house to sit alone and breathe tha air. It was a neglected garden, yet lovely still with its fringes of hollyhocks and mats of feverfew, columbine and love-in-the-mlst Mary sat down on the bench under the dwarfed sumac, with her face toward tb barooi which glittered with lights. The sound of a band playing there and the bells of the yachts came to her oa the salt breere. She clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back resting and dreaming. Presently she turned her head and saw a man standing within ten feet of where she sat, looking wistfully at her. He waa very tall and dark and strong looking. His head was bare, and his negligee shirt showed his mag-niflcent throat. "Fairyland, isn't it, over there?" he said and pointed with his pipe. "Don't you wish you were there, Mary, where they're dancing and laughing? You

She laughed cruelly. "What of it?" He looked at her, silent and stunned. "What of it?" she repeated in a cool, level voice, "Am I compelled to care only for you? Dleu! We might Just as well come to an understanding here now. To be frank, monsieur, all is OTer between us. I thought you knew that, but it seems I must enlighten you." The youth taggered and clutched the rail for support, gazing at her wildly. "What are you saying!" ha whispered hoarsely. "Do you know what you have said! You cant mean you doubt!" She gave him an amused glance, "I do. Sapristi! You are a nire boy, but young. Some day you will learn, m'sleur, that a woman's love is the most fickle thing In all the world. Au revoir, and take it not to heart." Dimly he heard the click of her high heels on the stone flagging. Whta he looked up she was gone. His head sank down on his arms, and when he finally raised it, minutes later, his dry eyes burned with a queer light II. Sonla had introduced a new Spanish dance to the guests. Costumed aa a cigarette girl in a gaudy shawl, and in her high-laced shoes, she danced a Castilian refrain to the music of castanets, a red rose between her lips. It was a languorous sort of dance, filled with the dreamy rhythm of Madrid and In it the Riberia was at her best It was her custom to glide to the table of the Barone, pause there, pirouette and then drop the rose from between her lips on his table, bow and run quickly off, followed by the rattling applause from the diners. On the same evening that Mario's dream castle had tumbled down about his ears, there was a peculiar ort of tenseness in the air, preceding the

Irish fool's a lovin' you, and she'd hate to give you up, but " Tis the best pookin I've ate since I ieft the old sod.' Bowers declared wistfully the next time Maria and little John were out with him, and Maria produced a picnic lunch she had prepared herself. "When you are gone to the north, mavorneen, I'll ret no more picnic dinners like these. "For three words I'd not go to ths north," burned la Marias heart. "For the love of Mike, say thim, raanl" she thought. At the end of the week Mrs. Nugent Informed Maria that in answer to a telegram in two days they would start for. New England. That night there was no sleep for Maria, but it waa near dusk the next evening before her mind waa made up. Just before sunset she led little John past Bowers' house. His face lighted at sight of her. "Is there anywhere I could be speaking to you without the whole town to be listening to what we'd be saying?" she asked him. High up on the mountainside Bowers stooped to gather a spray of the pink arbutus. "Tis the pink av it

By Phü Moore

belong there." "Oh, no, Dan, I belong here," Mary said. "Sit down." She made room for him beside her. He crouched forward with his pipe beween is hands, letting it trail Its smoke into the air unnoticed. Every night he came up the steps from the house below and they aat together talking. They had done it for three years, and yet somehow to-night was not like all the other evenings they had passed together. "That's French's yacht where all those lights are," he said. Mary did not answer. "Mother said sne saw him going into your shop today." "Yes." "Mary! He didn't want just candy. He wanted to se you. They say he's wild orer you, and that's why he's come back. I heard him talking myself today on the wharf to Bert Merrithew. 'I saw her, he said. 'Heavens. Bert, what a fool I was to gire her up. She's worth all the women I ever knew. And I'm going to have her now. Those were his words. Mary put out her hand and laid it ever so lightly on the big shoulder

Spanish dance. You could only sense it, my friend. It was vague and shadowy but nevertheless, curious as it might seem, it as felt by all. The usual opera selection completed, the orchestra began, pizzicato, the melody of the dance, and Sonia stepped gayly out and into the center cf the floor, the customary red ro between her lips. Never did she dance as she danced that night! Dlo! It waa magnificent Incomparable I She was dancing for Scotti alone, and all smew it. Round, round she whirled, accenting every other beat of the music wi;h a stamp of her little foot and clacking her castanets in rapturous abandon. At length she reached the nobleman's table. In a moment the dance would be over. Already you wer pushing your plate aside to u b M ready to apylaud. The roe fell frcca her lips on the table and the Barcne smiled up In her face. But she did not turn and ran en. a usual. Instead she stood there swaying. Then before one could catch a breath, she collapsed in & little heap) at Scottt'a feet. IIL Over the room had fallen a bush. It was so still you could ftave htard a pin fall. Thla silence was aoddenly broken by a roice from the musician! stand. It was Mario, leaning over, the same queer light blaxing la hii sunken eyes. "Feel not her heart, he said calmly, "It is quite useless. It waa poison concealed in the stem of the rote. My complimenta on your snecees. Barone. As she 1a, you may hare her! Something glittered in his hand. There was a shout and the rush of many feet. But it waa too late, Ther came the sound of a piftol shot, ft sharp swift crack and the drift of acrid smoke.

you've in your cheeks the day. he eald to her. "I want to tell you something. Michael," she quavered, uanoUcing. "I there waa once a nurse gettin old. She agreed on a paper shed stay with a pair until their child was 32. If then they'd give her 12,000 above regular wage. If she left before that time she'd cot get the money. But the mit a man she loved, and she- ehe thought the man loved her but he has not speke. She she has to go away. What ought she to do, Michael. Michael' blue eye twinkled. He took hold of her arms and looked Into her troubled eyes. "An- I waa the man she was lovin, I'd say. Tear up the paper and take ma, xnavourneea. My home down there is achln fer the all the time touch o' your feet. Talcs me, and ye'Il never have sorrcrar la satisfaction for It" The glory of happiness filled and lifted Maria. The sua had gone down, but on the far side of the river thera was still a streak of gold on the tops of the mountains. She drew the paper from her bosom and, tearing It in bits, scattered tbem among the shining galax leaves. nearest her. "Dan! Dan!" ehe ehtted gently. He buried his face in his kinds. "He'll win," he said. "I've always been afraid of him. He's got everything to win with. I haven't. I'm only the harbormaster a fisäencaa son to begla with. Lore is about all Ite got to give you "Love is enough," interrupted Mary. "Maryl" "Dan I' For a moment they looked into each other's eyes And then she was la his arms. "But I can't give up my candy shop even for you, Dan," Mary said presently. "You must take me, candy shop and all. I'm awfully attached to the candy shop." He laughed. "God love the candy Fhop," he cried, "since it brought you within my reach!" o Toe Soggestlve, Sandy Pike You didn't remain at de wayside cottage long? Gritty George No, de lady was too r-oetical. Sh- pointed ovrr to de unrt and said d? c!o::ds rrrr.indrd her c: Kirs of steel. I thought it vas time to ttmt ! "

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