American Push

COPYRIGHT. 1891. Some little time after midnight Eric touched Alonzo on the ana. The lattcr gave a kind of relieved start, and at once said: 'Tm so glad to find you. I mean to slip away, though of course you will not go y et." "You are tired so soon?" "Vcs - of seeing her, ringed round I with her new idolators. It's getting intolerable. I shouldn't have come at all!" "But, my doar Lonz, the Icing1 wishes to speak with you. lie has just sent me to ask you if you will not join him." Alonzo stood for a brief while irresohite. Then he tossed his head, bit his lip, and said in a voiee almost irritable: "Of course - of course! llow absurd ■of me! I'm almost forgetting that I'm a slave." "A slave, Lonz! You! As if I'd let you be! Come, now, take that horrible sentiment back! You're as l'ree as air, and you know it!" Alonzo slipped his hnnd into Erie's. "I'm very distressed," ered, "and I'm a fooi. For "It isn't for me to forgive you." ■"Oh, then ['11 apologize to him." "You neédn't, He'll oever know. Come with me, dear They quitted the room and pa tnrough si . "Whera on.earth are you taking .lonzo murmured more than once, bnt Eric, aa if the question needed no reply, kept pushing on. Presently, wheu it was for the third time repeated, he replied, while pushing open a vagne door over whieh was a lamp shaped like a drooping lotus Bower: "You ought to know. It's that little chapel. You told me, when I hr you here, one day, an ;■ lat it was very good. You congratulated me OH it, though you pronounced it a ; plagiarism from the Sainte Cnapelle in Paris. It isn't, for the simple reasoa that it's a copy." "I remember," feil from Alonzo, as he ' stood in the full-lighted interior and gazed about him. As in the Sainte Chapelle, there were fifteen windows of I superfine stained glass with their i signs from Seripture and the lives of ! the saints, blossoming out of lovely tracerics; there were the same polychrome adornments, and the same tatúes of the twelve Apostles over against the pillara. "It was so different when I saw it last," Alonzo continued. "The sunshine then ilooded it, and now there are these radiant candelabra, brimminj at inter,, th wax candles. W'ny is it thus illumined? What has tl.is dreamy little place to do with all that mundane and dazzling revel that we have just "It has but r -An lighted, as you will sec," said Eric, pointing to a cluster of candles near by. "The king desired this." ie of his whims, I suppose." "lie has no whitttt." "Does lic attend service her "ClarimondL My dear Lonz, you know by this time as well as I do that the king has no distinct reiigious ■ He h .heuse of this chapel to his inother during her stay here; the princess' apartments are not f.ir away from it. I have heard him say that if he ghould ever be married, his friend. Dr. Wouvennann, whom you already know, should perform the ceremony here between these walls. It will ba a new shock to conservatism, of course; for that kindly and intellectual old German, Wouvermann, is a thorn in the of the ree Saltravian clergy. . . . But here is the king now. Ile is coming to meet you." Clarimond was indeed advancing toward them, along the central aisle. As Alonzo's eyes met his La cessive pallor challengcd notice. The king extended his hand to Erie's friend, its flesh feit so icily cold to him that he almost reco; i cry. "Thank you for coming," he said. "I wish to hold a little talk with yon, if you will let me." Then he noefded to Eric, and swiftly ad "Leave us, picase, and earry out my other request. I am sure that you wil] succeed. And pray do not forget that you may freely use my narno, sanction and authority." With a Thaxtcr mutel; 'lonzo and his master stood together, in ' the ace and mellow splendor of the charming chapel. . . . It may have' been a half-hour later when he returned, accompanied by a lady. The chapel was then i 'nt again, and the lady gave a little joyful cry as shilout her. "Oh, this is so lovely! And you that the king . i pee me 1 Then it seemed to Kat' i f the king's prí from out the glimi of the place: and while he drc near to her Eric dis:. "You ar " said Clarimond. "I saw ho locked about you, there in the a. No doubt it was annoying to desert your scène of conquest. " "Xo, monsieur. I carne at your bidding." He smiled, and now sh very palc and sorrowful his !; liow it plainly 1 ere trial, though of course she could .not conjecture what. "You are to do something more at my bidding," he said; "that is, if you will." "If it lies in my power, monsieuiv- " slie Uegan, and then pausefl, wondering and alarmed becau.se liis mien was so f uil of that stipnge, repressed despair. "I hope it will lio withiD vour desira s welj," he an s not you need by no means rate it as an act of ob At this the king raised hls hand as if insignal to someone at the. further end of the chapel. leen notieed the gesture and presently receded, trembling. ir! I - I did not expect letoseehi ;arihalf : it, Alonzo carne nearer, athleen," he said, "i you? The has given me tí you are you have e "I - I am not i leen. ín i, confusión, she had : than now. "Ti with a sudden I ss, to the king, "have told him what [ told ' ' E ■■ Aivl then, stooped over it, r on it i, the kh iviny i side by e In a s:nall sacristy a few yards be soon carne face to 1 Eric, with a sdrt ■ i oing. "Ttaat is one, and few of its opportunities for y exsay that! Thousand gratil 3'ou "Yes," . voice, "I The pull, ■ lis eyes u s lace to ray forth spiritual "My fricnd, I had no other se than this. There are things that t do just because he is a man. I'.ut if be be a king as well, then the obrows doublé. We have oftcu spoken tog-ether on this question of the rihts of kings. You know how I deq -how they strike me as but a mil irvival of ancient error. Yet there has always seemed to me tnd, nevertheJess, in the whocould govern himself while governing his peo; Then he ceases to represent mere Ity and becomes rested with a teuöer vet rugged paternity. In those e such human unió: :1 throned 1 should ity of kings have found their sole true medium of expression. Yon h ouvermann?" "Yes, monsieur. Luckily I met him ■ lea ving the ball-room, 1 1 me was no fit an." at on him, then?" "01 isieur." i is to be a few ; silver bell on the p." "You mean, if she conse "lf ot, he will tñe to me and teil me of his faili; to the ball - I hope," Clarimond musinghe icil! consent Dr. i to-night. The;, much And if, as abitious views for her f will doubtless oppose ' their in the future with a new a pri ry. l'rom n, her interference i like a column of th " have Her t of malignancy, and I s: ! if she remains in Sr r (aa tlie wife of I. But ■ ■n his "I ; it, i, too, that he f 1 do, that you are the BOid a of all that is self-abnegating, grandly genis!" tanks, Eric; those w rich in encourag'eiiient. You know I do not. care for Q one strives toward an ideal of condñct, as I strive now, the eheer of a lóved frit-nd is like a warm handelásp in darkn'esa - " Just then a little silvery sound rèached their' ears. Clarimond sprang to his feet. Eric saw his lips twitch and his hand for a brief instant clench Miemselves at his sides. "The signa!, " he saicl. "She has consonted. üo for Dr. Wouvermann. You will l s, you know, Eric, and I - " he smiled, but to 1' smill; a terrible melancholy - "I siiall givo the bride avay." In the '. ■ had begrm to miss the at last he apin company with Kathliric and Aio full of ■ : ion, stimi:' by rare and copius wines, reigTied in merry ba'. almost threatened to ilrown the ui1 to his mother, sat talki; , ..ntlemen. Blanca rf'Iíst, also t her side. The'i htlywit!. as he ap] a lañe for him ■ low estrade where I s were placed. ■ well," murmured the princesa to him. "Others have spoken of it. I do so hope. ever, ar looks mean nol ;uite nis. Is it not true, my dar" !';,r the Ii ir forward a little, ■ of pre f mul tico] "Vi '.it into h I so it '.'. h his "I I as I live Iilit ti: :, tnake me the wort niest of is, the truest of v.-ives. One c ther rves lier p . it would I ■1 reduke ■ had . ïlie but Etill nors, ICing ;' the i honor to divine da ibassador, as he presented hi id a glass of Lat hls royal master would never have mark for a bride f he liad had the de' cried Mrs. Kennaird, in her most genial tre with her t Freneh, "ther a nn American queen, and 1 imagine there never will or, innocent child has never f such an honor, and, rcally, if it were offered to ' uld hardly know h r it." The Austria!; -riged plances. They wei rank, and it is probable that they the tenets of CL .■hile cting and pcrh; acter. That he sbould i ican girl, brighter than the Spartan Elelen's and her breedinj beyond a Eecamier's, no doubt strack them both as the essence of the ridieulous, lint '.. or may not, have thusqui j I" '-.IJ one aiaother their mutnj'1 ■ i her e she v, it seemcd to her as if a few ivon'.s, delivered aside to her mother, might soften rted. This, however, was not time. Mrs. heard her lowidings and s: blast m. Meanwhüe the baH went on, eddying, whirling, I in that ecstacy of [ oppnsite The axi na of the violins were raspin i the rd, but in other feminim- were ter: es of promise, of elation, of delieious inebri1 nd hoped. The princess of Brindisi heard thera, and half hoped, half doubted. Eric .1 because of that inystic and gTievous Parisian past coneerning' which he had, per.' this tim more disclosinafly to his dearest friend, Clarimond, king of Saltravia, heard them ith the pain of sacriüce, though ffladdened by thatense of self-, conquest which is the sweet wages of honor, as a sen.se of self-debaseiuent is the bitter in. Aio tliera, and the volurainous cadenees they breathed built for both heavenly castles of expectaney. And so the n on - music which so throbs, when art is its minister, with souvenirs and prophesies, memories and anticipations. Angry, mstere, choked with a pasFeeling of defeat and insult, .tood beside herdaughter a half hour or so later, that night, Alonzo 1. nd in the hand of Kathleen. The two ladies vvre ing their carriage, cloaked and , and at the portals of the pnlace. 1-by," Alonzo said. "ïill to-mom "Tiil to-morrow!"' Kathleen repcated. "Till to-raorrow, . "Till to-morrow - lIrs. Kennaird had overheard the two last murmurs of farewell. With her face pale and full of nervous tremors, she moved toward Alonzo. 'Til never forgive you," she gasped. "Nerer! You've kept her from a crown - a throne!" Alonzo, stung1, was about to reply; but Kathleen caught her mother by the wrist, and with the same ardor of selflion which had more than once repelled the spirit of even this woman's uusurpassable worldliness and ambition, she affirmed in eager whisper: "He gives me, mamma, all the erown T want - his love! He gives me all the throne I want - his name and his protection!" THE EXD.