class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Claire’s Child

As the mountain mist, caressing and desultory, resolved into a steady downpour, Anne glimpsed just above her the outlines of a hut. Crouched behind sodden boughs, decrepit, ramshackle, it tottered upon the lip of the ravine. With an amused sense of relief she trudged up towards it, her feet sinking amongst a welter of brown leaves, her whole being cleansed within the gray mantle of the rain. After a hectic summer of bridge and dancing this solitude of dripping trees and drenched leaves, fell upon her bruised spirit like a benediction. Anne thanked her very modern and somewhat pagan gods for having inspired her to escape from the inglorious rut. To-day, the New York season ahead of her, shone meretricious in the face of the crystal cleanliness of bathing woods. Perhaps she would give it all up and open the villa in Florence immediately instead of waiting until after Christmas. The very thought rested her. She attained the top of the ravine with renewed serenity.

Its gaunt outlines blurred by rain, the hut stood before her. Assailed by a feeling of almost girlish excitement she smiled with inward amusement. Surfeited, world-weary, surely she was not foolish enough to expect a thrill lurking within the walls of a dilapidated mountain cabin?

The careless little smile on her lips, she stepped upon the crazy porch and tried the door. Obstinate in mood it resisted her onslaught with almost personal violence. But she braced her back upon its gray stubbornness, and giving a vigorous push, burst into the room.

Dim, inhospitable, alien, its opaque shadows menaced vaguely. Still smiling, Anne ventured boldly forward. Then, as her eyes fell upon the hearth, hesitated, for from the embers rose a nebulous tube of smoke. Its faint, acrid tang rode the stale air challengingly. Anne darted a keen glance about her, focusing upon the extreme corner of the room where a denser blackness prevailed, which as she approached resolved itself into a couch and a mass of tossed blankets from which emerged a head; a tumbled, lolling head, which drooped towards the floor as if in pursuit of its own heavy, trailing hand. Pathetic, remote behind closed lids, it carried to Anne a summons both tragic and impelling.

She drew nearer and peered down into the pallid features. It was the face of a dissipated young god, glistening with a pallor of unhealth, beautiful in its decadence, with the pagan beauty of a Praxiteles.

A wave of pity and excitement surged over her. A boy, ill and alone; a boy with the face of a fallen Lucifer! She leaned over and placed her hand upon the pale forehead. It was cold and moist beneath a tangle of tumbled curls. She shivered slightly at the contact.

Ephemeral as was her touch, the leaden lids rose beneath it, and she found herself gazing down into a pair of weary, indifferent young eyes. She backed away hastily.

The boy intercepted her recoil with a harsh laugh. Sitting up, he clasped his head, and gazed at her from under long and pallid fingers.

“Did you think I was dead?” he said with a mocking air. “And