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Show i &7i' " from the ' -' stMmz. ''-ur BEATRICE FABfik. 1:7 M-Mayer;. . bored with this place, bored with 1 this life, bored with everything '' His eyes seemed to have sunk into his head. 'And only last night you swore that all this was enough." "That was last night," she returned. return-ed. "We say things we don't mean sometimes, at night." She added, ghastly in the candlelight, 'The heart has strange refuges. Sometimes Some-times it finds them in diamonds and in camellias and balls " He was silent. Slowly, she picked up her cloak and trailed to the door. As if he had suddenly been galvanized gal-vanized to life he sprang after her. "Where are you going?" he demanded, demand-ed, his face contorted with despair. "The Baron de Varville is expecting expect-ing me " "Marguerite!" " and at last I shall see what a great chateau is like inside." Not an hour later, she was in de Varville's chateau, a wineglass in i her hand, as the Baron drank a toast to her return. And in the days that followed she threw herself into a whirlwind existence of shopping, die. That's why I ask you not to quarrel with him or gamble with him tonight." "And if I refuse?" "If you hurt him in any way, I shall never see you again." He laughed, horribly. "Until you need me again and write again, begging beg-ging me to take you back." The color receded from her face but she remained silent. The game started and went on inexorably. Sitting Sit-ting stiffly erect, her eyes like glass. Marguerite felt a cold hand clutch her heart. Armand was winning steadily and to a man of de Varville's Var-ville's caliber, it was adding insult to injury. And then it happened! Armand, his face flushed with wine and triumph, rose unsteadily to his feet. "How much have you won?" someone demanded excitedly. "Give it to Marguerite!" Armand shouted insolently, "let her count it. i It's here!" he cried, in hysterical crescendo. He tossed the money across the table. "Take it. Buy camellias! ca-mellias! Buy horses and carriages, addressed her wijh incisive deliber-ateness. deliber-ateness. 'Armand Duval has had his satisfaction this morning and I paid for it with this. But now I shall have mine. There's no woman in Paris whose future is so certain to be filled with disaster and no one whose misfortunes I shall hear of with greater pleasure." Tearing, backing laughter ripped through her. "Don't try to hurt me," she said, coughing through her ghastly smile, "you can't. The dying are safe safe " Autumn chilled Into Winter. Then the snows melted and Spring was again reborn. Life and death, how close they : really are, Marguerite thought ope afternoon as she lay back against her pillows. Ill, penniless and alone, she was now. This great house, once, filed with her treasures, was almost stripped bare. Downstairs, in the salon, she know there were bailiffs waiting to remove the last vestiges of her former splendor. Her dying breath would be the signal. And all these weeks, no message from Armand. Not a word, not a Rescue: In the year 1S46, Marguerite Mar-guerite Gautier, the toast of Paris, has left Iter rich " pntrpn" the Baron de Varville and gone to spend the summer in the country coun-try with young Armand Duval whom she loves. Two happy months pass and she regains her failing health. Then one night Armand begs her to marry him. He leaves for Paris the next day to make arrangements for taking over his grandfather's small legacy. le-gacy. -Just an hour after he has left, Marguerite has a visitor. It is Armand's father. Chapter Three Rigidly, Marguerite faced the elder Duval, the pulse in her throat leaping like a mad thing. Finally, in a low, unsteady voice, she invited in-vited him into the house. "So this is Marguerite Gautier," he said as he lowered himself into a chair. "Yes. Monsieur." "I know a great deal about you Madame," he observed, not unkindly. unkind-ly. "I've been at some pains to learn everything I could this past week." The clear call of a mating bird came warbling from the distance. She threw wide her lovely arms. "Oh Monsieur, don't let us argue or quarrel. You love your son and I love him " "But if you love him, you won't want to wreck his life." "I'll never wreck it." Her eyes blazed and she cried passionately, "You're trying to make me give him up," Duval replied, quite calmly, "Of course. What else would you expect his father to do?" He continued, with a quiet force that was like a driving hammer, "I'm right Mademoiselle Made-moiselle or I couldn't ask this. In the world of good society to which Armand belongs and where his future lies, you wouldn't be received. receiv-ed. He has prepared himself for diplomacy. The examinations are ; very stiff but he studied seriously i and passed with honors. Even you, would understand that he couldn't take you to the courts of Europe." It was all crowding in on her, crushing her to the walls, she thought frenziedly. He was here to take her love from her and he would win. Duval arose and strode about the I- Hi Jt-i frl- - li, I v . ' 1 ' I'd t , '?') r v s i. t- , l "I love you so much. 5 , ..-., - L You're the woman I'll , - , - t ; always love, the ' , ?'',. " - woman I can't do I ' , , . ,1 f . without " t - ' ' ' s x . . ' I ' t ' ' v , . ssA . , ,- ' v V; , p-- I 4 k1 . : - : , ' w - ' ' , - i.A " ' a r - ' , 1 "--J "V 1 - V ' ' vl if 1 , - - room. We must consider you in this matter as well as my son. Your life is before you. and I feel it my duty to warn you that within a year, two years, you'll be bored to death with poverty. Now is the time, while you're still young and fascinating, fascin-ating, to attract men who can take care of . you', who can provide for , you in the style to which you have been accustomed." Tremblingly, she faced him. Perhaps Per-haps no one in this world except Armand's father, the father he respected re-spected and loved, could have persuaded per-suaded her that it was right to be selfish, to be mercenary, to be cowardly. cow-ardly. "Go back to the Inn," she said harshly. "I'll send Armand there to you tonight, cured of all fine sentiments as you've cured me." His troubled gaze rested on her f'or a long moment. "Then goodbye, good-bye, Madame." "Goodbye. And don't tell your son you were here. He might hate you." The afternoon's bleak hours passed. pas-sed. Evening fell, bringing with it, a clouded, starless sky. Marguerite's 1 face was a frozen mask as she sat stiffly in a chair, waiting for Armand. Ar-mand. She had despatched a note to de Varville at the chateau and the hour was drawing clofte when he would- be expecting her. Diamonds glittered at her wrists and in her hair and from the low cut bodice of her golden evening dress, her slender neck rose, gleaming gleam-ing white, like a fragile stem that proudly bears its flower. The door swiing open and Armand Ar-mand strode across the threshold. "Hullo," he beamed. Then his smile faded. "Why are you all dressed up like this?" She felt an agonizing pain as she steeled herself to her task. "I happen hap-pen to be going some place. Is that bo strange?" A low, hurt cry escaped him. ''Marguerite!" Then he said sharply, sharp-ly, "Something odd has happened here. What was it? I want the truth." MTha truth? Very well then. I'm r of dancing, of everything that Pans offered for forgetfulness. The Autumn leaves were crackling crack-ling under foot on a night when she passed through the doors of Olympe's house with the Baron. Another An-other "ball" was in progress euphemistic euphe-mistic name for the gambling soirees with which Olympe and other ladies of uncertain fortune augmented their incomes. , But suddenly, ' she' stopped short and seemed turned to stone. A pair of blue eyes, bright with drunken glitter, a crooked, tipsy smile on a dear, well-remembered face, me her gaze not three feet away, Armand! Ar-mand! The thing she had dreamed about, had dreaded, was now a reality. re-ality. They had met again! : "Please," she begged with a tremulous smile as she glanced fearfully at the Baron. There were undercurrents here, dark, swirling and dangerous. If only she could keep them from the surface. , "Dance with me," Armand said preemptorily. De Varville stood at his elbow. Sauvely, he interjected, "Mademois-alle "Mademois-alle prefers to play." "Then I'll play too Armand retorted re-torted blandly. De Varville raised a scornful eyebrow. eye-brow. "The big table is reserved for high stakes.' Breathing with difficulty Marguerite Mar-guerite walked with the two men to the larger gambling room. The tiger that clawed her chest and destroyed her nights was at his destructive de-structive work again. A rasping cough shook her frame. As de Varville seated himself, she bent down and said, close to his ear, "I don't want you to play for high stakes with Armand Duval." "Still in love with him, eh?" "Yes," she replied tonelcssly, "I shall ba "in love with him until I - diamonds, dresses from Prudence! Give it away, eat it with champagne, buy moonlight! Buy an attic! Buy a grave!" De Varville stepped forward. Removing Re-moving his cigar from his mouth, he said, "I congratulate you, Monsieur. Mon-sieur. You know how to treat a woman as she deserves, like the cheat this one is." The silence roared like a burst of cannon. Then, disastrously, it was broken as Armand whirled and slapped the Baron across the mouth. Through a blind, smothering fog Marguerite heard the men make their arrangements arrange-ments for the duel. "No, no Armand!" she tried to say but the words were lost in the great void that swallowed her. Slowly, Slow-ly, she slid from her chair to the floor.' - The cheerless light of early dawn was tinting the sky as she sat on a small pavilion bench in the Bois some hours later. Not three hundred yards distant were the duelling grounds.' Stonily, she waited. Then, like the crash of doom there came the . report of two pistol shots. In-, congruously, the birds began to warble. There was the ominous pad of footsteps running over the wet grass. In an ague of terror Marguerite Mar-guerite waited as she saw that it was Gaston, Armand's friend. "Safe," he said as he ran into the pavilion, "but the Baron was wounded. wound-ed. That means Armand must leave this country to avoid arrest. He's already on his way." Then, from outside, there was a small commotion as de Varville stepped into the pavilion supported by his doctor and his coachman. His left shoulder was bandaged. He faced Marguerite and gave vent, to- a strangled oath. Then he sign, though it seemed that the very i force of her will must have brought him running to her side. "Mademoiselle," Nanine said in an odd voice from the doorway, "we're having some visitors today " ! Slowly, Marguerite sat up and ; her eyes were enormous. "He'a here!" "Yes, Mademoiselle." She slipped from the bed. A mirror, mir-ror, rouge, a chair in a feverish . ' .whirl she flew about the room. Then Armand stepped across the threshold. "I've been a madman!" he cried, drawing her frail, shattered shatter-ed form to his breast. "I've had no peace! I love you so much. You're ths woman I'll always love, the woman wo-man I can't do without." What happiness, she thought, through quiet tears. Her life had been a search for love. And now it had come, in full measure, to comfort and warm her at the end. j "I'll take care of you! I'll make i you well!" Armand was saying frantically, "I'll take you to faraway, far-away, beautiful places " Painfully, she rose. "Take mo to Bougeval where we were happy all one summer," she said faintly, "Nanine, "Nan-ine, my furs, my hat" But slowly, like some alpestrine flower too long exposed to harsh winds, she sank to the floor. "Don't ever leave me, Armand " Her eyelids fluttered for an instant, like white moths, then closed and were still forever. The Lady of the Camellias was gone to the peace she had never known in life. "Marguerite, come back, I need you," Armand wept in anguish. Crossing herself devoutly, Nanine said, "She's gone, gone ari&n may God have mercy on her soul." 1036 Loew's Incorporated THE END. |