A QUESTION OF QUALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 6

A QUESTION OF QUALITY.

(By Mrs Effie A. Rowlands.)

CHAPTEK VIII. (Continued.). . j

Bettine made no answer. She only stood and looked out of the window, with her lips drawn into a hard, thin line. After a moment she turned' away, and walked back to the fire. ' 'You expect Lord Kingsberry tonight, do you not?' she queried, as she put one well-shaped foot on the fender, and looked down -with an appreciative smile at the Countess' two dogs lying stretched on the hearthrug. " 'I iuver expect anything from Nigel. He is the most unreliable person in the world. He will come if he wants me, of that I maybe very sure. I don't however, particularly wish him to come here. He always stirs up Alicia. There is generally a scene after they have met.'

Bettine's lips smiled a sneer.

'And yet he is the Earl of Kingsberry!' "She had a bitter mood upon her suddenly. Those few words about Gallard had stung her. She resented the knowledge of the man's success sharply. Enmity with Bettine Sylvester was li.o empty thing. She went on speaking in the same sneering fashion: 'One would have thought his title and his kinship would have made Lord Kingsberry most acceptable to his aunt.'

'Alicia is difficult to please, but you, at all events, have no right to complain,' retorted the Countess in her most straightforward way. Bettine turned over one of the sleepy dogs with her pretty foot and stroked it caressingly. 'Oh!' she said, with equal frankness, 'Lady Alicia is not pleased with me in the very least. She supports me because she does not know what else to do.. You see, I placed her at a disadvantage, and she cannot recover fi*om it. No one would rejoice so much as Lady Alicia would if I were to announce my immediate departure; unless, of course,' the girl said quietly, 'I also announce that I depart because Mr Loftus has asked me to do so.'

The Countess put down her knitting. There was a slightly troubled look in her usually bright eyes. 'Are you going to marry this man, Bettine ?' she asked. Bettine's small foot passed up and down the fox terrier's sleek white body. 'He has not asked me yet, dear Lady Kingsberry.' The old woman looked at her as she stood there regal in her fresh young beauty. Against herself the Countess found a kind of sympathy steal over her for this girl, so undeniably rich in her 'power of attraction, as undeniably poor in her circumstances. She knew only as much about what Bettine's childhood had been as the girl herself had told her. Ealph Baillie's lips were sealed; he had not spoken James Sylvester's name to his wife or her mother. Yet, knowing nothing, the Countess seemed to understand how the spirit of this' strong, self-willed, ambitious creature must have fretted and fumed beneath the jarring restraint of sordid poverty. She had been yrung and ambitious herself. She felt her pulses thrill with Bettine's, yet she could not forget Nancy, and the quiet, half-troubled air that had hung over the girl the last week or so, aad that she could not help associating with Edward Loftus. She had Nancy only in her thoughts as she spoke now. •'Why are you in such a hurry? Why take this' man before you have i?iven your future more chance? You have all your life before you, remember.'

Bettine smiled faintly;, 'This is what I say to myself constantly. In my changed position I have a future, which is something I certainly had not before, but— —' She paused. 'Well, you haye. a practical mind, Lady Kingsberry. Do you seriously advise me to turn aside from a life of luxury and assured fortune merely for the chance of getting something better?'

The Countess took up her knitting again. 'I have a practical mind, it is true, but I also have a sprinkling of sentiment, and I believe to a certain extent in fair (dealing,' she said in her driest way. 'Which means, properly translated,' Bettine answered, leaving- the fire and walking back to her former place at the window, 'that you share Lady Alicia's views as to the wife Mr Loftus ought to choose.' 'It means, my dear, that I do not consider any woman has the right to marry a man for whom she has no more feeling than she has for a block of wood. You, appealed just now to mv practical mind, and so I broach the subject quite frankly. As far as Edward Loftus is concerned, I have no views or wishes of any kind or sort; but, as I said a little while ago, he is a good, honest soul, and as such deserves fair treatment. A marriage between such a man and yourself is a matter to be arranged with mature consideration, assuredly not in haste.'

Bettine stood and looked out of the window in silence a moment or two.

'Your first argument moves me the most,' she said in a musing way when she spoke; 'I think,'perhaps; it is unwise to be in such a hurry!'

The door opening to admit Nancy, prevented the Countess from making any reply to this; she looked upward instead with a smile of unconscious tenderness at her grandchild.

'Ah, a telegram for me,' she exclaimed, seeing the buff envelope Nancy carried in her hand; 'from Nigel, of course, to say he is not coming-. Yes, he is off to Ireland again tonight. The. boy is up to mischief. I don't feel easy about him!'

Nancy laughed slightly, as she knelt down by the dogs in front of the fire. 'Poor Nigel!' she said; then she looked across at her cousin. 'Bettine, will you go to the study? Daddy told me to say he would like to speak to you.' . -.'.." .

Bettine moved away from the window.

. 'I hope uncle Ealph is not going to scold me!' she aaid, brigUtly. 'I don't feel I. have done anything wrong, but one never knows.' She gave Nnney n brilliant smile and disappeared, and there was a silence in the room fliter she was gone, a silence which Lady Kingsberry broke. ' 'Anne,' ene said, abruptly, 'you wera furious with me the other day for telling y°ll yon wefe leaden-coloured, I Tray,' what do you think you are look- ! ing like now, may I ask?' Nancy put her hands to her cheeks involuntarily, 'I look a guy, 1 am sure,' wftfl her answer, given with a touch of her old sauelnesa. • j Lady Kingsberry continued her cat-, echism, . • 'You said you were going to ride over to Clinton Cote this afternoon; ! have you been?' ; Nancy shook'her head. 'No, Grannie, dear, I rode instead to the brew- > cry, I wanted to see Dads.' Lady Kingsberry was all curiosity. •What for?' she asked tersely.' Nancy gave a little sigh. 'I had a letter from Hubert by the late morning post. He asked me to lend him some money for a week or so, and as I have spent my quarter's allowance, I had to go and bother.Daddy.' Lady Kingsberry stuck her knitting needless into the sock and began roll* ing it up slowly. 'I should like to know what you bought with your quarter's money, Anne,' she said, meditatively. 'I suppose you did not by chance include a handsome set of silver brushes and other trifles, that I saw in your cousin's room yesterday, in your expenditure?' 'Grannie!' Nancy laughed and coloured. 'You are curious. How do you. know what Bettine has in her room?' 'Yes, I am curious,' the old lady answered. 'I am curious to know what your father is saying, to Bettine —perhaps you can help me.' The girl, kneeling by the fire, ceased smiling. 'I don't believe you want me to help you in that, Grannie,' she answered. Lady Kingsberry came across to the fireplace. 'Edward Loftus is a fool!' was her remark. Nancy looked upwards. 'Surely it is not foolishness to fall in love, Grannie?' To this the Countess had a prompt reply: 'Of all follies it is the worst. Now' —she tapped Nancy's head with her knitting—'you may as well confess you don't approve of this marriage.' . Nancy laughed faintly. 'My opin-' ion is of no,value, Grannie. I don't even know that I have any opinion. Life has been so different these last few weeks. ' Bettine is' —Nancy paused, and her colour came and went quickly in her cheeks, then she frowned and smiled at the same time «-*well, I cannot exactly explain Bettine; but I cannot help feeling sorry she should promise to marry Edward till she knows him a little better. The idea of Edward being married at all is funny .to me—he always seems to me such a boy, even though he is over twenty-eight.' Then Nancy looked into her grandmother's eyes with her own frank, pretty ones slightly troubled. ,T am very fond of Edward, Grannie,' she"confessed. 'It is a dreadful thing to say, but I really feel fonder of Edwai:d than I do of Hubert, my own brother. We have known each other such a long, long time, I should like him to be very, very happy in his married life; and if I only could feet sure that Bettine would make him happy, I don't thing it would matter one jot that she has only known him these last few weeks. But Bettine will not make him happy, Grannie, and ' but here Nancy broke off and laughed nervously. 'I said I had no opinion to give, and here I am preaching a sermon,' she said lightly. She got on to her feet. 'I am going to post my letter to Hubert, shall I take1 the dogs as far as the village; Grannie?' she asked; and the Countess nodded her head and made no ftirther remark. ' 'Well,' she said to herself, as the entrance of the servants bringing in the afternoon tea roiised her; 'well, I was mighty pleased that day. of my arrival^ when I found Ralph asserting himself, but it strikes me that for once I am a little out of my reckoning, and it strikes me further that Miss Goldenheaded Bettine will provide a fair share of excitement in the future for all of us.'

(To be Continued.)