A QUESTION OF QUALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 77, 3 April 1899, Page 6

A QUESTION OF QUALITY.

Qly Mm Effie A. Rowlands.)

CHAPTER IX,

Bettine only had one other private interview Avith her uncle since her arrival at Summer Lodge. On that occasion Mr Baillie had broached the subject of his arrangements for the girl's future, had given her the first instalment of the yearly allowance he intended her to have (the sum was exactly the same as that he gave to Nancy), and in his gentle, half-shy manner he had expressed a desire that his niece should learn to look to him for all she needed in the future.

Bettine had accepted her uncle's generous kindness in the quiet, matter of fact way with which she had adapted herself instantly to her neAV surroundings. She did not overburden Mr Baillie Avith expressions of gratitude, and though he had not wished her to do this, the girl's manner and bearing struck a little jarring note on the man's feeling. In the days that followed this jarring sensation increased Avith Ralph Baillie, just as it did Avith Nancy. In truth, both father aud daughter were bitterly disappointed with Bettine; she was a new experience to them, and they were of such simple honest natures themselves, that the study of a nature such as Bettine presented, was a lit we beyond them.

T want you to be a sister to Bettine, my little Nance,' Ralph Baillie had said to his own girl in those first few moments of explanation, when the news of Bettine's coining was told her, and Nancy had given her father a promise that sprang from a heart of love and sympathy. But Bettine had no desire for sisterhood. She was very bright and charming Avith Nancy, and accepted all the many little acts of kindness the other girl lavished upon her quite easily. Nancy's first task had been to give to Bettine most of those things which she herself possessed. Lady Kingsberry's quick eyes had seen many a letter despatched in Nancy's pretty AArriting to some London shop, and many a little box or package arrive Avhich found a restingplace in Bettine's pleasant bedroom. Those silver brushes and toilet accessories, about which the old lady had asked so pertinently, had been not the least of the gifts Nancy took delight in providing. For a week or so this task had in itself given her a touch of happiness she had never felt before. But Nancy's sensitive spirit could not linger long in an atmosphere so strangely unsympathetic as that which surrounded Bettine. Nancy's experience of girls was limited; confined, indeed, to that which she gathered from her intercourse with the sisters of Edward Loftus, and from such odds and ends of cousins on her mother's side as came now and then to pay a short visit to Summer Lodge. She Avas therefore not very competent to judge whether Bettine was an ordinary character or not, but her natural instinct was her monitor in this respect. Like her father, she had not the faintest desire to be laden with gratitude for all or anything she did; but Bettine's attitude was such a curious*, one that Nancy could not but-"be -chilled and disappointed. The fact was that Bettine had set herself a role to play in life, and she played it consistently. She had been so trained by her mother in the beginning of her days to regard herself as a creature wandering out of her proper sphere, that after she had conquered that first moment of awkwardness, the night of her arrival' at Summer Lodge, she simply accepted her new position, and .all appertaining to it, as a matter of course.

Nancy's gifts were received with a pretty word and smile, but they, too, Avere only in Bettine's opinion part and parcel of the whole. She had sketched out so many pictures of a future in which luxuries and splendour were to abound that, in truth, the surroundings of her new home did not come to her as a very great surprise. In fact it was a relief to .Bettine when Nancy began to cease her little ministrations of love. At first Nancy had paid many a visit to her cousin's room, and been eager to sit and chat a while and so learn to know something more of the girl she wished to call her sister; but Bettine detested confidences. She had never indulged in a great 'friend' at school, and had little sympathy for girls, or, indeed, for any of her own sex. She found Nancy passably pretty, she admired the way her cousin was dressed, she approved, too, of Nancy's quiet charm of manner, but had no hesitation in summing up the other girl as weak and uninteresting. In truth, Bettine had more affinity with Lady Alicia than she had with either her uncle or cousin. Unlike most people, she found Lady Alicia's attitude towards the man she had married not only comprehensible but justifiable. Her feelings, fostered as we know by her mother, in respect to both her uncle and Lady Alicia, had changed greatly since she had been an inmate of their house. She was as utterly out of sympathy with Ralph Baillie as Lady Alicia herself was. His kindliness of heart and tender nature had no value in her eyes, once she had used them to her advantage, " . and having touched the one vulnerable spot in Lady Alicia's character in the first interview they had had together she found herself drifting into a degree of understanding with the older woman that might almost have been termed a sympathy. There was no intimacy between Lady Alicia and herself, but Bettine knew that in making that first appeal to her uncle's wife she had gratified that vanity that was the ruling power of Lady Alicia's whole existence, and in so doing had secured a valuable ally for the present at aU events. She knew perfectly well, too, that her uhcle must have been more than bewildered at the utterly unexpected manner in which she had secured his wife's good. opinion, just as she was equally well aware on this particular afternoon, as she walked to obey his summons and speak to him in his study, that the fact of Edward Loftus'

proposal Avould have come to Mr Baillie as a great shock. Bettine smiled faintly to herself as she turned the handle of the library door. Of course she had seen from the first that young Loftus would be an easy conquest. To do her justice, Bettine had not given him the faintest encouragement, for though she had immediately summed up the advantages in such a marriage, she had in reality no desire to settle the. question of her future so quickly. Wealth and position would be hers assuredly if she gave herself to Edward Loftus as wife, but Bettine had no hesitation in considering such a gift greater than this particular young man deserved. She was, she told herself with absolute sincerity, worthy even a better fate than this. Nevertheless, she was preeminently practical, and she had no intention of dismissing the matter as another woman might have done. It Avould be easy enough to temporise. It AA'as not a long, neither Avas it a particularly pleasant intervieAv that passed between her uncle and herself. There were occasions Avhen Ralph Baillie could be stern and even a trifle C3'nical. This Avas one of them.

'Of course you are at liberty to change the situation if you like,' he informed Bettine; 'but I have told Mr Loftus very candidly that I consider your acquaintance of much too young a date to Avarrant me in sanctioning even an engagement between you as yet. It is true I have knoAvn Edward Loftus since he Avas a lad, but you, although of my own kin, are comparatively a stranger to me, Bettine, you see, and I should prefer, therefore, to give no opinion for some little time to come.'

'Of course, I quite understand, Uncle Ralph,' the girl said, with that faint, rather mystifying smile of hers; "_ut her heart had flamed into sudden anger at the doubt implied so openly for herself in her uncle's words.

Ralph Baillie glanced at her as he went on speaking. There Avas less and less of his sister's memory conveyed to him in the personality of her beautiful child, nothing to draw bis heart nearer to her.

'There is another thing, Bettine,' he went on, a little hurriedly. 'I made absolutely no mention of your father's existence or profession to Mr Loftus. I shall leave this matter in your hands, also, merely pointing out that it will be imperative that there should be no secrecy maintained on this point. At present it seems to me that Loftus labours under the mistake that you are an orphan.'

' 'My father,' Bettine made answer to this in hard, measured tones, 'my father is as much dead to me as though he lay in his grave.' She said no more than that, and Nancy's father looked at her with a strange expression in his eyes, tlaspflad'calniafoijcs-tl tn"reply

'Nevertheless, Bettine,' he said more coldly than he had ever spoken in his life, 'Your father is not dead, much though you may regret the fact.'

Bettine rose. She was pale, but she was still smiling. 'I suppose there is really no more to be said between us, Uncle Ralph. I am much obliged to you for your kindness in being so explicit both with Mr Loftus and myself. I shall give every heed to what you have been saying.'

She closed the library door quietly and walked up to her own room in her usual tranquil way. Had she remained another five minutes Avith her uncle she must have betrayed something of -the anger his words and maimer had roused within her. In particular she resented the allusion to her father. It hurt her now even to remember her father's existence, for though she knew that by no individual intention or act on his part would he ever approach her in her new life, yet circumstances might always arise by which he might easily be made the unconscious cause of great annoyance to her, and it was quite impossible to guard herself against every sort of circumstance. As far as Edward Loftus was concerned, Bettine was well convinced that knowledge or no knowledge of her father and all his disreputable associations Avould make no difference whatever; but the world Avas not peopled with none but foolish, infatuated young men. She sat before the fire in her cosy room and nourished the anger against her uncle.

'He is disappointed, of course, because of Nancy,' she said to herself, in part explanation of the hard, semicontemptuous tone that had pervaded Mr Baillie's manner, in which she was utterly wrong, for whatever plans might have been formulating themselves in Lady Alicia's brain where Nancy and Edward Loftus were concerned, Ralph Baillie ,Avas fan from dreaming of them, had been a long way off indeed from desiring to part with his only joy, even to a man whom he liked and respected as honestly as he liked and respected Edward Loftus.

It pleased Bettine, hoAvever, to think this thought, and in her present mood it pleased her also to imagine she should hurt Nancy in this matter, only because she knew that to give Nancy sorrow would be to upset her uncle altogether, and she had a very keen desire now to annoy her uncle if possible. "There was a distinctly agreeable sensation to the girl's ambitious egotistical -will in ranging herself against both Ralph Baillie and Lady Kingsberry in this matter of Edward Loftus.

As to what course Lady Alicia might take Avhen the news was given her Bettine did not exactly know, but she felt she Avould be able to manage her aunt in this as in other ways. Broadly speaking, however, Bettine was really indifferent as to whether she won Lady Alicia or not. The present position of affairs filled her heart with a kind of triumph. This was what she had always pictured to herself would come to pass were she only given the proper opportunity to come in contact with that section of the world that signified wealth, rank, power. ,':

Edward Loftus, as an individual, was of no very great importance in Bettine's eyes, though he would be unobjectionable as a husband, because she could dominate him so thoroughly. Yet, simple country gentleman as he was, he never could have come into her life under the old auspices. There were no men of wealth and few of any pretensions to breeding surrounding James Sylvester of late days. Bettine bit her lips and grew cold and white as she realised that the only friend of her father's who had seemed so superior to the rest had been a man who had dared to dream that he could treat her with absolute disrespect, and in brutal frankness had let her understand that a girl placed as she was at that time could expect little else.

By contrast with that past odious experience the worship that Edward Loftus now gave her, the recollection of the young man's humble pleading was made inexpressibly gratifying, and could she have completely con-

quered self and the graspings of an utterly selfish nature, Bettine might have found happiness in the young man's love. As it was, she thought merely of the material advantages and the satisfaction that sh<* could obtain by triumphing over all her adversaries, among whom, henceforward, she would class her uncle himself. _ Before she left her room to join the dinner table that evening she had written a brief, prettily worded letter to Edward Loftus, putting an end to the young man's suspense by telling him she had reflected on his proposal and that she consented to become his betrothed wife. t 'An engagement is not a marrige, she said to herself as she slipped some lilies of the valley through her slender Avaist belt and glanced complacently at the reflection of .her lovely face and her burnished masses of hair.

She smiled with content as she drew before her the image of herself, not modestly attired as she now was in a black grenadine, but regal in costly garments Avith a crown of jewels gleaming from her small proud head. She went doAvn the stairs having this image of herself before her eyes all the time, and she sat through thelong (-inner, the only person avlio enjoyed the meal or seemed to find the moment an agreeable one.

Nancy avoided going over to Clinton Cote for the first few days following on Bettine's engagement. Usually she rode or droA'e over to the charming old house at least every other day, but she wanted to grow a little accustomed to the position, and to have arrived at some good conclusion in her own mind before she exposed herself to all the questioning and comment, and perchance objection that the Loftus family might express to her confidentially on the subject. She had seen Edward the day following the arrival of Bettine.s little letter to him, and she had spoken a feAV simple Avords of heart felt and sincere good wishes. The change in the man positively startled her; he seemed wild with happiness. The whole Avorld seemed to have grown beautiful for him in a few hours. Nancy sat and listened to his enthusiasm with a. quiet smile on her lips and a curious cold sensation on her heart. She Avas not qualified or desirous of understanding what such a sensation could mean, but set it doAvn vaguely to a little natural feeling of regret that their old, long friendship had never been able to. afford EklAvard such intense pleasure as had come to him now through a stranger. To Bettine she said very little, and she was glad when her grandmother intervened and prevented much chance of the cousins being .together. Lady Kingsberry Avas a woman of ready resource, and for the first week of Bettine's engagement she had such a sharp attack of rheumatism that confinement to her room and even to her bed was the only condition possible to her, she declared. 'And Anne must nurse me,' was her command, 'and nurse me properly,' she added; 'no gallivanting out at all hours, Anne. You have to sacrifice yourself completely, my dear, and be at my beck and call whenever I may choose to want you.'

Nancy signified immediate consent. 'Is the pain any better to-day, Grannie?' she asked, two mornings after she had made her slender right arm weary with rubbing the invalid's shoulder; but on the third day Nancy did not ask the question, for her grandmother's expression had confessed what' her lips did not, that there was no pain Avhatsoever, and all her rubbing might have been dispensed Avith. Without understanding exactly the drift of the old lady's manoeuvres Nancy could not but be grateful to the quick wit that had come tp her rescue just at this particular moment. The atmosphere of her home was very trying to Nancy just now. With Bettine's coming it seemed even as though a difference had arisen in the heretofore happy intercourse 'between her father and herself, the truth being that Ralph Baillie shrank from discussing Bettine, even with Nancy. Her mother's attitude,' that had been such a pleasant surprise to the girl in the beginning, now troubled Nancy a little. It Avas to her so incomprehensible that Lady Alicia should allow herself to be ruled by any one. Could Nancy have seen a change wrought in her mother's manner with her father, she might have supported the eA'idence of Bettine's power more willingly; but Lady Alicia, though so tolerant with the newcomer, was more coldly contemptuous and bitter with her husband than she had ever been, and Nancy shared this treatment with her father. ' The girl confessed to herself she should rejoice when Bettine's engagement would end in her marriage. She felt she should breathe more freely when her cousin Avas gone. It was to be a very short engagement, and a busy one. . When, at the end of a week's confinement to her grandmother's soi disant sick-room, Nancy put on her habit and rode at length over to Clinton Cote, she found the house practically upside down. Mrs Loftus met her with a bewildered look in her motherly face, and in a very few minutes Nancy had heard all the plans for the future. Edward's mother and sisters were vacating Clinton Cote Avith as much haste as possible. T^hey Avere going to live in London.

'Eddie and Miss Sylvester think it will be so much better for the girls,' the mother explained, and loyal as ever, she added, 'and I think so too. They have such a dull life here, you see, Nancy dear.' And Nancy agreed, only too eager to add her share towards smoothing what she knew must be a rough path, though the information gave her a sharp pain, for she could not acclimatise the Loftus girls with a town existence. Moreover, she seemed to know even now in the beginning that Bettine would never be content to live at Clinton Cote more than a few weeks at a time, and that all this change and sacrifice of feeling could so easily have been avoided. The generous, way in which Mrs Loftus and her girls were prepared to welcome Bettine brought a rush of tears to. Nancy's grey eyes.

'She is so beautiful, and Edward is so happy; we are so delighted,' the simple, tender-hearted women united in saying, and one and all hid from each other the bitter regret that it had not been Nancy who had been chosen by 'darling Edward' to be his Avife. Nancy rode home in a subdued and saddened mood. She would have been so content to have been able to swell the chorus of praise sung in honour of Bettine, but her heart rebelled against her cousin. She was convinced Bettine did not even pretend to care for Edward Loftus, and more than this, she knew that his simple-hearted goodness would never be able to gloss over the lack of those mental qualities which a woman of Bettine's calibre Was bound to demand". Nevertheless, there was no gainsaying the fact that Edward was marvellously happy, | and if he were satisfied with the posi-

'tion of affairs, surely it was foolish I enough on her part, Nancy argued, I with a faint smile, when thought after ! thought had chased itself through her ! mind, to trouble about him. A surprise aAvaited her as she reacn--led her home, for trotting up the car- ' riage drive she overtook a young man | walking briskly in the same direction, I whistling cheerily as he walked, and i carrying o good-sized dressing-bag in | his hand. ~ Nancy drew rein beside him. Nigel! I she exclaimed. 'It is Nigel, isn't it? she added hurriedly, for the afternoon Avas closing in, and the light was not clear. 'Hallo, Nancy! where do you spring from? Does Aunt Alicia approve of this independence?' Nancy bent down from the saddle and the cousins clasped hands. f 'Grannie Avill be glad to see you, Nancy said; and the thought of the old lady's pleasure gave her a pleasure, too. Indeed, the unexpected coming of Lord Kingsberry was welcome to her also, for it would signify a certain relief. The Earl laughed. 'Yes, I expect she will, dear old soul,' he said; 'she has been writing me explosive letters lately, though; "she seems to imagine I have been doing no end of awful things.' . 'You disappointed her by not coming down a week ago. Nigel, why are you carrying that bag? You shrould have left it at the lodge. Have you walked all the Avay from Northchester?' 'Is it very far, then?' queried the Earl. They chatted on till the house came in sight. _. T travelled doAvn.with Loftus. he seems in the seventh heaven. Going to be married, so he tells me.' 'Yes,' Nancy said; 'Edward is very happy. He is just engaged to my cousin, Bettine Sylvester, who has come to live with us lately. You have never seen her, Nigel.' Then a little more hurriedly, 'That is Bettine standing in the doorway.' ' Lord Kingsberry looked keenly at the tall figure, with its aristocratic bearing and its cold lovely face. He appraised all Bettine's attractions in that one glance. 'She looks handsome,' he said to Nancy; then, with a twinkle in his Irish grey eyes as he put down his bag and lifted the girl from the saddle, T hope she is good,' he said; 'but, of course, she must be if she is allowed to live at Summer Lodge, and is going to marry Edward Loftus!' (To be Continued.)