At the age of twenty-six Donald Abbott had become a prosperous and

distinguished painter in water-colors. His work was individual, and at the

same time it was delicate and charming. One saw his Italian landscapes as

through a filmy gauze: the almond blossoms of Sicily, the rose-laden walls

of Florence, the vineyards of Chianti, the poppy-glowing Campagna out of

Rome. His Italian lakes had brought him fame. He knew very little of the

grind and hunger that attended the careers of his whilom associates. His

father had left him some valuable patents--wash-tubs, carpet-cleaners, and

other labor-saving devices--and the royalties from these were quite

sufficient to keep him pleasantly housed. When he referred to his father

(of whom he had been very fond) it was as an inventor. Of what, he rarely

told. In America it was all right; but over here, where these inventions

were unknown, a wash-tub had a peculiar significance: that a man should be

found in his money through its services left persons in doubt as to his

genealogical tree, which, as a matter of fact, was a very good one. As a

boy his schoolmates had dubbed him "The Sweep" and "Suds," and it was only

human that he should wish to forget.

His earnings (not inconsiderable, for tourists found much to admire in

both the pictures and the artist) he spent in gratifying his mild

extravagances. So there were no lines in his handsome, boyish, beardless

face; and his eyes were unusually clear and happy. Perhaps once or twice,

since his majority, he had returned to America to prove that he was not an

expatriate, though certainly he was one, the only tie existing between him

and his native land being the bankers who regularly honored his drafts.

And who shall condemn him for preferring Italy to the desolate center of

New York state, where good servants and good weather are as rare as are

flawless emeralds?

Half after three, on Wednesday afternoon, Abbott stared moodily at the

weather-tarnished group by Dalou in the Luxembourg gardens--the Triumph

of Silenus. His gaze was deceptive, for the rollicking old bibulous

scoundrel had not stirred his critical sense nor impressed the delicate

films of thought. He was looking through the bronze, into the far-away

things. He sat on his own folding stool, which he had brought along from

his winter studio hard by in the old Boul' Miche'. He had arrived early

that morning, all the way from Como, to find a thunderbolt driven in at

his feet. Across his knees fluttered an open newspaper, the Paris edition

of the New York Herald. All that kept it from blowing away was the tense

if sprawling fingers of his right hand; his left hung limply at his side.

It was not possible. Such things did not happen these unromantic days to

musical celebrities. She had written that on Monday night she would sing

in La Bohème and on Wednesday, Faust. She had since vanished, vanished

as completely as though she had taken wings and flown away. It was unreal.

She had left the apartment in the Avenue de Wagram on Saturday afternoon,

and nothing had been seen or heard of her since. At the last moment they

had had to find a substitute for her part in the Puccini opera. The maid

testified that her mistress had gone on an errand of mercy. She had not

mentioned where, but she had said that she would return in time to dress

for dinner, which proved conclusively that something out of the ordinary

had befallen her.




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