6 The Man on J the Box J & By HAROLD MacGRATH \ m Author of"The Grey Clorik," "The Puppet Crgwu." Li « J : Cop)light, 1904, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. CHAPTER XV.—CONTINUKD. 1 low adroitly he had sown the seed! > At that period he had no positive idea j upon what kind of ground he had cast | it. But he took that chance which all | -far-sighted men take, and then waited. There was little he had not learned about this handsome American with the beautiful daughter. How he had learned will always remain dark to nu\ My own opinion is that he had been studying him during his tenure of office iu Washington, and, with that patience which is making Itussia so formidable, waited for this opportu nity. I shall give the Russian all the jus tice of impartiality. When he saw the girl, he rather shrank from the affair. But he had gone too far, he had promised too much; to withdraw now meant his own defeat, his gov ernment's anger, his political oblivion. And there was a zest in this life of his. lie could 110 more resist the call of intrigue than a gambler can resist the croupier's "Make your game, gentle men!" I believe that he loved the girl the moment he set eyes upon her. Her beauty and bearing distinguished her from the other women he had met, and her personality was so engaging that her conquest of him was complete and spontaneous. How to win this girl and at the same time ruin her father was an embarrassing problem. The plan which finally came to him he re ■pelled again and again, but at length 'he surrendered. To get the parent in his power and then to coerce the girl in case she refused him! To my knowl edge this affair was the first dishonor able act of a very honorable man. ,But love makes fools and rogues of us all. When the American returned to the world, his cigar was out and his coffee was stale and cold. "A million francs!" he murmured. '"'Two hundred thousand!" The seed had fallen on fruitful ground. CHAPTER XVI. THR PREVIOUS AFFAIR. Mrs. Chad wick had completed her toilet and now stood smiling in a most jfriendly fashion at the reflection In jthe long oval mirror. She addressed ithis reflection in melodious tones, j "Madam, you are really handsome: land let 110 false modesty whisper in iyour ear that you are not. Few women in Washington have such clear skir, such firm flesh, such color. Thirty eight? It is nothing. It is but the half-way post: one has left youth be hind, but one has not reached old age. Time must bo very tolerant, for he has given you a careful selection. There were 110 years of storm and poverty, of violent passions; and if I have truly loved, it has been you, only you. You are too wise and worldly to love any one but yourself. And yet, once you stood on the precipice of dark eyes, pale skin, and melancholy wrinkles. And even now, if he ware •to speak . . . Enough! Enough of this folly. I have something to ac complish to-night." She glided from the boudoir into the small but luxuri ous drawing-room which had often been graced by the most notable men and women in the country. Karloff threw aside the book of poems by De Banville, rose, and went forward to meet her. "Madam,"—bending and brushing her hand with his lips, "Madam, you grow handsomer every day. If I were 40, now, I should fear for your single blessedness." "Or, if 1 were two-and-twenty, in stead of eiglit-and-thirty,"—beginning to draw on her long white gloves. There was a challenge in her smile. "Well, yes; if you were two-aml , twenty." 1 "There was a time not long ago," she said, drawing his gaze as a magnet .draws a needle, "when the disparity 'in years was of no matter." • The count laughed. "That was three •years ago; and if my memory serves .ms, you smiled." "Perhaps I was first to smile; that is all." "I observe a mental reservation," — owli slily. "I will put it plainly, then. I pre ferred to smile over your protestations rather than see you laugh over the possibility and the folly of my loving you." "Then it was possible?"—with inter est. "Everything is possible . . . and often absurd." "How do you know that I was not truly in love with you?"—narrowing his eyes." "It is not explanatory; it can be given only one came—instinct, which in women and animals is more fully developed than in man. Besides, at that time you had not learned all about Colonel Annesley, whose guests we are to be this evening. Whoever would have imagined a Karloff accepting the hospitalities of an Annes'.ey? Co..nt h.iili not t!o l'css a caul.cr. 1 " "Madam!" Kartell was frowning. "Count, you look like a paladin when you scowl; but scowling never induces anything but wrinkles. That is why we women frown so seldom. We suiile. But let us return to your query. Sup posing I had accepted your declarations seriously: supposing you had offered 1 me marriage in that buifat of gratitude: 1 supposing I had committed the folly of becoming a countess, what a posi tion I should be in to-day!" "I do not understand,"— perplexedly. "No?" —shrugging. She held forth a gloved arm. "Have you forgotten how j gallantly you used to button my j gloves?" "A thousand pardons! My mind was ! occupied with the mystery of your j long supposition." He took the arm j gracefully and proceeded to slip the 1 pearl buttons through their holes, j (Have you ever buttoned the gloves j of a handsome woman? I have. And there is a subtile thrill about the pro ceeding which I can not quite define. Perhaps It Is the nearness of physical beauty; perhaps It is the delicate scent of flowers; perhaps it is the touch of the cool, firm flesh; perhaps It is just romance.) The gaze which she bent upon his dark head was emotion al; yet there was not the slightest tremor of arm or fingers. It is possi ble that she desired him to observe the steadiness of her nerves. "What did you mean?" he asked. "What did I mean?" —vaguely. Her thought had been elsewhere. "By that supposition." "Oh, I mean that my position, had I married you, would have been rather anomalous to-day." She extended the other arm. "You are in love." "In love?" He looked up quickly "Decidedly; and I had always doubted your capacity for that senti ment." "And pray tell me, with whom I am in love?" "Come, Count, you and I know each other too well to waste time in beating about the bushes. Ido not blame you for loving her; only, I say, it must not be." "Must not be?" The count's voice rose a key. "Yes, must not be. You must give them up—the idea and the girl. What! You, who contrive her father's dishon or, would aspire to the daughter's hand? It is not equable. Love her honorably, or not at all. The course you are following is base and wholly unworthy of you." He dropped the arm abruptly and strode across the room, stopping by a window. He did not wish to see her face at that particular instant. Some men would have demanded indignant ly to know how she had learned these things; not so the count. "There is time to retrieve. Goto the colonel frankly, pay his debts out of your own pockets, then tell the girl that you love her. Before you tell her, her father will have acquainted her with his sin and your generosity. She will marry you out of gratitude." Karloff spun on his heels. His ex pression was wholly new. His eyes were burning; he stretched and crum pled his gloves. "Yes, you are right, you are right! I have been trying to convince myself that I was a machine where the father was concerned and wholly a man in regard to the girl. You have put it before me in a bold manner. Good God, yes! I find that I am wholly a man. How smoothly all this would have gone to the end had she not crossed my path! I am base, I, who have always considered myself an hon orable man. And now it is too late, too late!" "Too late? What do you mean? Have you dared to ask her to be your wife?" Had Karloff held her arm at this mo ment, he would have comprehended many things. "No, no! My word has gone forth to my government; there is a wall be hind me, and I can not go back. To stop means worse than death. My property will be confiscated and my name obliterated, my body rot slowly In the frozen north. Oh, I know my country: one does not gain her grat itude by failure. I must have those plans, and nowhere could I obtain such perfect ones." "Then you will give her up?" There was a brokeu note. The count smiled. To her it was a smile scarce less than a snarl. "Give her up? Yes, as a mother gives up her child, as a lioness her cub. She has refused me, but nevertheless she shall be my wife. Oh, I am well versed in human nature. She loves her father and I know what sacrifices she would make to save his honor. To-night!—" But his lips suddenly closed. "Well, to-night? Why do you not goon?" Mrs. Chad wick was pale. Her gloved hands were clenched. A spasm of some sort seemed to hold her in its shaking grasp. "Nothing, nothing! In heaven's name, why have you stirred me so?" he cried. "Supposing, after all, I loved you?" He retreated. "Madam, your sup positions are becoming intolerable and I impossible." "Nothing is impossible. Supposing 1 I loved you as violently and passion ! ately as yOu love this girl?" | "Madam," —hastily and with gentle ness, "do not say anything which may ! cause me to blush for you; say noth- J ing you may regret to-morrow." "I am a woman of circumspection. My suppositions are merely argument ative. Do you realize, Count, that I ' could force you to marry me?" Karloff's astonishment could not be equaled. "Force ne to marry you?" "Is the thought so distasteful, then?" "You are mad to-night." "Not so. In whatever manner you I have succeeded in this country, your | debt of gratitude is owing to me. I CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1906 do not recall this fact as a reproach; I make the statement to bear me on in what I have to submit to your dis cerning intelligence. I doubt if there is another woman, here or abroad, who knows you so well as I. Your personal honor is beyond Impeach ment but Russia is making vast efforts to speckle it. She will succeed. Yes, I could force you to marry me. With a word 1 could tumble your house of cards. I am a worldly woman and not without wit and address. I possess every one of your letters, most of all have I treasured the extravagant ones. To some you have signed your name. If you have kept mine, jou will ob serve that my given name might mean any one of a thousand women who are named 'Grace.' Shall you marry me? Shall I tumble your house of cards? j I could goto Col. Anncsley and say to him that if lie delivers these plans to you, I shall denounce him to the secret service officers. I might cause his ut ter financial ruin, but his name would descend to his daughter untarnished." "You would not dare!" the count interrupted. "What? And you know me so well? I have not given you my word to re veal nothing. You confided in my rare quality of silence; you confided in me because you had proved me. Man is not infallible, even when he is named ICarloff." She lifted from a vase her flowers, from which she shook the "IT IS WAR. THEN?" water. "Laws have been passed or an nulled; laws have died at the executive desk. Who told you that this was to be, or that, long before it came to pass? In all the successful intrigues of Russia in this country, whom have you to thank? Me. Ordinarily a wom an does not do these things as a pas time. There must be some strong mo tive behind. You asked me why 1 have stirred you so. Perhaps it is because I am neither two-and-twenty nor you two-score. It is these little barbs that remain in a woman's heart. Well, I do not love you well enough to marry you, but I love you too well to permit you to marry Miss Annesley." "That has the sound of war. I did love you that night,"—not without a certain nobility. easily you say 'that night!' Surely there was wisdom in that smile of mine. And I nearly tumbled into the pit! I must have looked exceed ingly well . . . that night!"— drily. "You are very bitter to-night. Had you taken me at my word, I never should have looked at Miss Annesley. And had I ceased to love you, not even you would have known it." "Is it possible?"—ironically. "It is. I have too much pride to permit a woman to see that I have made a mistake." 'Then you consider in the present instance that you have not made a mistake? You are frank." "At least I have not made a mistake which I can not rectify. Madam, let us not be enemies. As you say, I owe you too much. What is it you desire?" —with forced amiability. "Deprive Col. Annesley of his honor, that, as you say, is inevitable; but I love that girl as I would a child of my own, and I will not see her caught in a net of this sort, or wedded to a man whose government robs him of his manhood and individuality." "Do not forget that I hold my coun try first and foremost," —proudly. "Love has no country, nor laws, nor galling chains of incertitude. Love is magnificent only in that it gives all without question. You love this girl with reservations. You shall not have her. You shall not have even me, who loves you after a fashion, for I could never look upon you as a husband; in my eyes you would always be an ac complice." "It is war, then?"—curtly. "War? Oh, no; we merely sever our diplomatic relations," she purred. "Madam, listen to me. I shall make one more attempt to win this girl hon orably. For you are right; love to be love must be magnificent. If she accepts me, for her sake I will become I an outcast, a man without a country, j If she refuses me. I shall goon to the end. Speak to the colonel, madam; it is too late. Like myself, he has gone ! too far. Why did you open the way j for me as you did? I should have been satisfied with a discontented clerk. I You threw this girl across my path, indirectly, it is true; but nevertheless j the fault is yours." "I recognize it. At that time I did not realize how much you were to 1 ine." "You are a strange woman. I do not understand you." "Incompatibility. Come, the car riage is wailing. Let us be gone." "You have spoilt the evening for me," said the count, as he threw her ; cloak across her shoulders. 1"On the contrary, I have added a peculiar zesf. No, let us go and ap pear before the world, and smile, and laugh, and eat, and gossip. I,et the heart throb with a dull pain, if it will; the mask id ours to do with as we may." They were. In my opinion, two xery unusual persons. CHAPTER XVII. DINNKit IS SISUVED. "Hal- Monsieur Pierre, having uttered this ejaculation, stepped back and rested his fat hands on his fat hips. As he surveyed the impromptu butler, a shade of perplexity spread over TTis oily face. He smoothed his imperial and frowned. This groom certainly looked right, hilt there was something lacking in his make-up, that indefinable some thing which is always found in the true servant—servility. There was no humility here, no hypocritical meek ness, no suavity; there was nothing smug or self-satisfied. In truth, there was something grimly earnest, which was not to be understood readily. Monsieur Pierre, having always busied himself with soups and curries anil roasts and sauces, was not a profound analyst; yet his instinctive shrewd ness at once told him that this fellow was no servant, nor could he ever be made into one. Though voluble enough in his kitchen, Monsieur Pierre lacked expression when confronted by any problem outside of it. Here was the regulation swallow-tail coat and trousers of green, the striped red vest, and the polished brass buttons: but the man inside was too much for him. "Diable! You luke right. But no, I can not explain. Eet ees on zee tongue, but eet rayfuse. Ha! I haf eet! You lack vot zay call zeo real. You make me t'ink uf zee sairvant 011 zee stage, somet'ing bettair off: eh?" This was as near as monsieur ever got to the truth of things. [To Be Continued.] SOME QUEER WEDDINGS. Humorous I ueiilen ts of .Nuptials Performed liy :i Voted Cleric. "It is hard to look over my record of marriage services without continoua merriment," wrote the Rev. John Hen ry Barrows, president of Oberlin Col lege. In a memoir of her father's life Miss Barrows gives some of his ex perience in his own words. "I recall the marriage where the awkward father of the bride, who was himself nearly seven feet tall, tried to knell when his daughter knelt and who required help to bring him to his feet again. "I remember the loving groom who had come to my house to be wed, and who, after the ceremony, tenderly re marked : "Jennie has no friends here, doctor. I should be so glad if you would kiss her!' "I think of the young man in church who walked with five other young men up one aisle, while the bride and five other young ladies walked up the other aisle, the two forming a straight military line before the altar, and who, when I whisperingly asked him his first name, replied in loud tones, 'I do," and who, at the close of the service took out a ten-dollar bill and presented it in the presence of the entire congre gation. "I think of the couple whom I called by wrong names, saying, 'Do you, George?' 'Do you, Martha?' when I was really addressing John and Jane. In hurriedly glancing over the license, I had read the names of the bride's father and mother instead of those of the bride and groom." Why the Actor Smileil. The late Joseph Jefferson used to enjoy telling, in his quaint way, of the sad case of a player in the old days A company had been sent out f;om New Orleans to visit the towns along the Mississippi river up to St. Louis. Business had been anything but good, and the meager receipts at the box office had resulted in a heavy reduc tion of salaries before the oompany had been out for many weeks. 0110 night, after the performance, the stage manager, who also was the leading man, took exception to the manner in which one of the players had interpreted a certain "death scene." "Why," exclaimed the stage manager, indignantly, "you actually smiled in that scene!" "Yes," re plied the player who had been re buked, "in view of the salary that you now pay me, death seems a pleas ant relief."—Success Magazine. French "Bull." The following Verbal "bull" is cred ited to u Frenchman who. while prom enading with a friend, noticed a pass ing cab drawn by a pair of horses, one black and the other white. "Look," said one; "you don't often see a pure white horse and a pure black one harnessed together." "That's so," was the response. "Do you know why the black horse is on the near side?" "No." "Why, they always put the horse that isn't the same color as the other on the near side." Proprietary VtfKlitn. "My stars!" exclaimed a sympathetic old lady who had seen a man fall on the icy pavement. "You are mistaken, madam," re sponded the man, sitting up and blink ing; "they're mine." Rising stiffly to his feet he went his way.—Philadelphia Ledger. SiKiiiilonnt. "Well. Borrouglis has moved to Lex ington." "Yes, and I miss him. too." "For how much?"— Louisville Cour ier- Jo urual. JOHN HENRY ON COURTING. By HUGH McHUGH [GEORGE Y. rSOBART] M? ilk "In the Days of Old." Are you wise to the fact that every thing is changing in this old world of ours, and that since the advent of fuss wagons even the old-fashioned idea of courtship has been chased to the woods? It used to be that on a Saturday even ing the young gent would draw down his six dollars' worth of salary and chase himself to the barber shop, where the Dago lawn trimmer would put a crimp in his mustache and plaster his fore head with three cents' worth of hair and a dollar's worth of axle-grease. Then the young gent would go out and spread 40 cents around among the tradesmen for a mess of water-lilies and a bag of peanut brittle. The lilies of the valley were to put on the dining-rom table so mother would be pleased, and with the peanut brittle he intended to fill in the weary moments when he and his little geisha girl were not making goo-goo eyes at each other. But nowadays it is different, and Dan Cupid spends most of his time on | the hot foot between the coroner's of | flee and the divorce court, I've got a hunch that young people ; these days are more emotional and | like to see their pictures in the news papers. Nowadays when a clever young man goes to visit his sweetheart he hikes over the streets in a benzine buggy, and when he pulls the bell-rope at the front door he has a rapid-fire revolver in one pocket and a bottle of carbolic acid in the other. His intentions are honorable and he wishes to prove them so by shooting his lady love if she renigs when he makes a play for her hand. I think the old style was the best, because when young people quarreled they didn't need an ambulance and a hospital surgeon to help them make up. In the old days Oscar Dobson would draw the stove brush cheerfully across his dogskin shoes and rush with eager feet to see Lena Jones, the girl he wished to make the wife of his bosom. "Darling!" Oscar would say, "I am sure to the bad for love of you. Pipe the downcast drop In this eye of mine and notice the way my heart is bub bling over like a bottle of sarsaparil la on a hot day! Be mine, Lena! be mine!" Then Lena would giggle. Not once, but seven giggles, something like those used in a spasm. Then she would reply: "No, Oscar; it cannot be. Fate wills it otherwise." Then Oscar would bite his finger nails, pick his hat up out of the coal scuttle and say to Lena: "False one! You love Conrad, the floorwalker in the butcher shop. Curses on Conrad, and gee what you have missed, Lena. I "To Prove His Intentions Were Hon orable." have tickets for a swell chowder party next Tuesday. Ah! farewell forever!" Then Oscar would walk out and hunt up one of those places that Car rie Nation missed in the shuffle and there, with one arm glued tight around the bar rail, he would fasten his system to a jag which would last for a week. Despair would grab him and he'd be Oscar with the aouse thing for mure. 1 MEDIUM-SIZED SHIPS IN FAVOR. Liite shipping returns compiled bv j Lloyd's prove quite conclusively that j the great carg j carrier of the world is Eti:i the medium-sized tramp steafnar which can get iu and out of all ports of consequence in the known world end on a draft of from 22 to 25 feet ca»Ty from 6.000 to 10,000 tons of car £T>. The ex'ent to which vessels of j tills type predominate over all others j bus neen frequently shown in Lloyd's Ktg J ter, and, despite the fact that j When he would recover strength enough to walk down town without at tracting attention of the other side of the street, he would call on Lena anil nay: "Lena, forgive me for what 1 done, but love is blind —and, be sides, 1 mixed my drinks. Lena, I was on the downward path and I near | ly went to hell." Then Lena would say: "Why, Oscar, I saw you and your bundle when you fell in the well, but I didn't : know it was as deep as you mention." Then tliey would kiss and make up, and the wedding bells would ring just as soon as Oscar's salary grew j large enough to tea.-e a pocketbook. I But these days the idea is altogether ! different. Children are hardly out of the cradla | before they are arrested for butting , into the speed limit with a smoke ! wagon. Even when they go courting Ihey | have to play to the gallery. • Nowadays Gonsalvo H, Ptiffenlotz l ' "She Thinks She Is a Sibson Girl." walks into the parlor to see Miss Imo gene Cordelia Hoffbrew. "Wie gehts. Imogene!" says Gon salvo. "Simlich!" says Imogene, standing at right angles near the piano because she thinks she is a Gibson girl. "Imogene, dearest," Gonsalvo con tinues; "I called on your papa in Wall street yesterday to find out how much money you have, but he refused to name the sum, therefore you have un told wealth!" Gonsalvo pauses to let the Parisiaa clock on the mantel tick, tick, tick! He is making the bluff of his life you see, and he has to do even that on tick. Besides, this furnishes the local color. •' Then Gonsalvo bursts forth again: "Imogene! Oh! Imogene! will you be mine and I will be thine without money and without the price." Gonsalvo pauses to let this idea get noised about a little. Then he goes on: "Be mine, Imo gene! You will be minus the money while I will have the price!" Gonsalvo trembles with the passioa which is consuming his pocketbook. and then Imogene turns languidly from a right angle triangle into more of a straight front, and hands Gon salvo a bitter look of scorn. Then Gonsalvo grabs his revolver and, aiming it at her marble brow, exclaims: "Marry me this minute or I will shoot you in the topknot, be cause I love you." Then papa rushes into the room and Gonsalvo politely requests the old gen tleman to hold two or three bullets for him for a few moments. Gonsalvo then bites deeply into a bottle of carbolic acid, and just as the coroner climbs into the bouse the pic tures of the modern lover and lover ess appear in the newspapers, and fashionable society receives a jolt. This is the new and up-to-date way of making love. However, I think the old style of courting is the best, because you can generally stop a jag before it gets to the undertaker. What do you think? (Copyright, 1901, by G. W. Dllllnsham C