YOUNG HEARTS

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 169, 18 July 1924, Page 12

YOUNG HEARTS

By EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS. CHAPTER XXIII. Georgette chose to be very much annoyed with Diana because the other girl , refused to mix with her guests. Finding that it was of no use to argue with her mother, and baffled unpleasantly by that mother's curious attitude, Hiss iPelvine'e temper was not of the best at this time, and she vented her anger to a great extent on Diana. She presented herself in Miss Orland's X sitting-room one day, and attacked the '" other girl. *■ '■Hay! What do you mean by putting c on such frills, Diana?" she inquired. c 'You're not 6ick now, and there is no ' earthly reason why you shouldn't do the civil to these people, even if you do i- think you are a bit too grand for them!" '1 Diana had risen as Georgette had v burst unceremoniously into her room. "I am in mourning," she answered, c "and I am not in the slightest degree n disposed to meet a number of strangers." Georgette was smoking, and she puffed • some tobacco smoke in the direction of c Diana. "Well, I'm not going to stand it," she > said. "I'm boss here now that mother r has cracked up, and I suppose you know it is you that's made her ill. *Yes! I'm 3 boss, and 1 give orders." J Diana's colour rose, and she pulled hert self up proudly. s "I receive no orders from you, C.port gette," she saiJl. "Nor do I recognise - your authority. You are not my guarl dian, and I don't understand what you - mean when you say that I have made ' your mother ill. If we speak plainly 1 think it was just the other way about." , Georgette gave an angry exclamation. 1 "Oh! you do, do you?" she said. "Well, » I guess you've got a lot to learn. You 1 say I'm not your guardian. Well, see here. 1 represent my mother, and what • my mother says where you are concerned ; goes. You'd better catch on to that i right away." '■ Then she caught eight of Ann Morgan, ; who was hovering about in the room, : watching her young mistress anxiously. "Say!" she said. "Who arc you — where do you come from t" It was Diana who answered her. ' "Morgan is my maid," she said. "That doesn't answer my question!" t retorted Miss Delvine rudely. You may think that she's your maid, but she's not engaged by my orders, and I run this show!" She turned orj Ann Morgan. "You clear out!'* she said. Beat it! If that isn't plain language, pack up your trunk and go!" Ann Morgan was not so easily daunted. • "I have been properly engaged here, ma'am," she said, "and I cannot be sent away at a minute's notice." Diana had turned very pale now, and Morgan could sec that she was getting agitated. The maid spoke to her geDtly. "I think, miss, you ought to go and rcet. You've had a long walk this morning, and you're tired." j She opened the door leading into the bedroom, and Diana, without a word to I Georgette, turned and walked into it, | and then tho door closed and the maid turned to Georgette. "I am not going to leave here," she said—"not in a hurry. I have been properly engaged, as I told you just now, I and I have done nothing to be dismissed I in that way. You try to send mc away, ' and I'll coon show you you are not really bqss of this house! And you are certainly not going to boss Miss Orland." Georgette stood looking at the woman. j She was in a fur 3% but something in the expression of Ann Morgan's steauy eyes told her that she had met more than her match. She called Morgan a very ugly name, and then she turned on her heel j and went away. Then she went to find | the housekeeper, and was beginning to be very insulting and rude, when tho other woman stopped her. . " Please don't say another wprd, Miss Delvine. If I have to leave I can tell i you that when I go every other servant ( in the house will go with mc. We only \stay on because of Miss Orland, and I think I had better tell you that several of the maids have told mc that they will not put up with your language and your rough ways. If it were not for Miss Orland they would have left several days ago. And," added the woman, " if the house is emptied, you will find that you are very unpleasantly situated. You sec, you don't know how to treat servants, Miss Delvine. You have a great deal to learn!" There was a touch of the coward in Georgette Delvine. She had told her j mother that she was yellow, but there | wad also a yellow etreak in her ; and when she was faced bo steadily and calmly as she had been faced by Morgan, and now by tho housekeeper, and as the unpalatable truth was forced home on her that her pretence of being a grand lady had deceived no one, she considered that retreat was better than valour, and so she walked away from the housekeeper, but in a more subdued way than she had left Diana's apartments. She went to find her mother, but here again she was defeated, for Mrs. Orland was undoubtedly ill. She seemed tc have aged suddenly, and the maid who had taken'Justine's place told Miss Delvine that she was very anxious about her mistress. "I thjnk she ought to see a doctor, miss. There must be one in the neighI bourhood." I Georgette stood at the foot of the bed looking at her mother, and that strange sense of uneasiness became more and more definite. She was now convinced that her mother had never been straight in her, dealings with her, and she could not | help jumping to the conclusion that this • physical breakdown was not due in any j way to the strain of influencing Diana (although that, of course, probably had ! affected Mrs. Orland's health), but had its rise in something more serious and possibly dangerous. It would have given her the greatest satisfaction to hare shaken her mother and forced her ' to speak out, but she had to turn away ' from the bed and go from the room. There was ep much to anger her, and ' yet to depress her. Hbjr failure with ' Peter Shirjey rankled bitterly. The I knowledge that Diana was slowly but < surely regaining her health and becoming a normal creature was in itself a blow. ' The convincing' fact that her mother < bad thrown up the game, and was fighting with some invisible trouble, was another blow. Everything seemed to be crumbling about her, but the defection of her ' mother was the most difficult of all the < problems' with which she was confronted. I' It seemed so strange that a woman who "• all her life had prayed for one big chance, ' who had got that big chance, obtaining ' everything that she wanted (just like < the working out of a fairy tale), should' I break down get soon after the good for- f tune had come to her; moreover, it was- < so unlike what Georgette's conception 1 of her mother's character had led her to '■ expect. \\

JJ She had regarded Loretta Orland as a ■» woman with her head well screwed on her shoulders. A woman who looked all heart, and yet had none. A woman with , a cold, calculating, callous nature, and '■ certainly Diana's stepmother had shown all these qualities at the time of her husband's death. She had also been un- . changed during the first part of their I stay in London. What had happened to bring about c this illness? What was pressing on her . mother's mind? Could she get at the truth? Marcus Davis was no use to her. j Justine had gone. Only her mother herr self could give her the information she now craved to have. 3 Georgette had gone to her room, and j now was pacing Tip and down the floor; she had clenched her teeth and her r hands. "I'm not going to be beaten," she said j to herself. "If mother won't speak of j hor own free will, IVo got to make her. > 111 or well, she's got to tell mc what's at ' the back of all this!" 1 As the voices and laughter of the various people whom she had brought down , came to her ears, she felt that she hated a them all, and Lyndhurst in particular. ' He was beginning to be such a nuil sancp, and yet she was not going to give f up the idea of hia marriage with Diana. Far from it! Now more than ever she 1 ! was determined to put an insuperable • barrier between Diana Orland and Peter ■ Shirley. The mere fact that the other i girl was recovering sufficiently enough as to take a stand and to repudiate her ■ authority as Diana had just dono was like a red rag to a bull. She had been • thwarted at every turn, but she was not ! worsted, and so Diana should discover I ■ before very many more days had gone 1 by. • When she went down to join the others on the lawn, where they were having tea and playing tenni3, sho called • Lyndhurst to one side. ■ "Say!" she said to him in her rough ; fashion. "Get a move on, can't you? ; VVhut did I bring you down here for? ■ You'll get cold feet "if you stand around and wait for mc to give you all the opportunities to epeak to Diana—you've got to do it yourself. I've brought you 1 hore, and so I've given you a start; now 1 it is up to you." Lyndhurst looked at her—a steady, apprising look. "Something's upset you. What'e the matter?" he asked. "Oh, you can swear at mc if you like," he added with hia thin smile. "Bad language doesn't hurt anyone, and it may relieve you." Aβ she made no answer, but sat down sullenly swinging her foot, he went on: "You know it's perfectly ridiculous of you to reproach mc because I don't get ( in touch with Diana, Do you expect mc to walk into her room?" Georgette answered him rudely. "I guess I don't expect anything from ' you. You're a. kind of washout, you ' arc!" . Then she turned on him. ( "Do you want to marry Diana, or 1 don't you?" Lyndhurst'e face coloured hotly. "If I don't, marry Diana Orland I'll never merry At all!" "Well, you will die a bachelor!" said Georgette, with a harsh laugh. "Because I guess Diana Orland is not for you!" \ Oddly enough she used the very game I wordfl that Sir Jasper Shirley had used on a former occasion, and they stung. The young man winced, as if he had been lashed with a whip. It was the first time that Georgette had ever seen him lose his temper. He got up suddenly, aqd in a voice that was hueky with anger he said: "111 mako you change your opinion, Miss Delvine, and before long!" Then he asked in a purely conventional tone: "Can't I get you some tea?" Georgette sat and watched him as he walked to the tea table, and the uneasiness that pervaded her mind gradually Hubdued her anger, and then she laughed recklessly. "Why should I worry?" B he asked herself. "Here I am getting the blues, and all because things don't pan out just exactly as I want them to go. Can't I afford to wait? I've a good mind to chuck the whole thing and marry that chap . . .'• (That chap being a dark-faced foreign-looking man with a graceful and yet a wiry body. A splendid. tennis player," fine swimmer, and an all-round attractive person from a social point of view.) He had been paying a great deal of attention to her during the latter part of tho season. He was from the Argentine, and was said to be very- wealthy. About this Georgette had her doubts. ■ She had met his type before. She felt instinctively that he was an adventurer. One of those men who sponge on those WllO are rich, and livo pleasantly at other peoples expense. But "tjlia man, Valdez, interested her, and though she had no real intentions where he was - concerned, she did not discourage him.

l There was, in truth, far more in l sympathy between herself and such a 1 man that there ever could .have been i between Peter Shirley and herself, and it I had given her vanity n. good deal of i satisfaction to° have had Yaldez paying rllier so much attention, always in close . i attendance, and making love on every r I possible occasion. She laughed to herself a little ag she t sipped her tea. Lyndhurst had walked r away after he had attended to her, ; bringing her tea and cake?. "I guess Valdez thinks he haa struck . I oil!" Georgette mused. "'He doesn't j know how much I've pot, but he is making pretty sure that I've got it and ( in chunks, too!" This thought, brought another, and \ Georgette frowned as she put down her cup. She had refused to play tennis. [ She said it was too hot. [ Her guests had quickly realised that she was not in hor usual good spirits [ and had tactfully left her to herself. The thought that came to hor now was, how did .she stand with regard to , money? Of course she had a very i ample allowanrp. Jlfr mother had practically shared with hor, hut this was j not a' settled arrangement. It dct pended entirely on her mother's whim, and between hor mother and herself ' there was now stretching a wide eliasm ' which seemed to pet wider every day. \ Georgette suddenly sat a little forward. Her heart was heating a little uncomfortably. \ "Kay!" she said to herself. "T guess this is where Marcus has got to come 1 in." Yes! she would have to turn to Mar- ' ICUS Davis, and put tilings very clearly in front of him. He must ppt. her ! mother to settle money on her. Marcus could manage her mother if he chose Ito do it, but perhaps he would not : choose—there lay the difficulty. For, as the reader knows, (Jeorgette had become "wise," as she would have phrased it, to the fact that the lawyer wan in love with her. Uut she had to put this aside —she would pet in touch with him. She had given him an invitation to come down to Point Place, and he had promised to join her party in a few weeks' time. Perhaps it would be as well to leave things till he was on the spot, and while he was there she would , have to be very careful in her management of John Valdez. Georgette suddenly gave a heavy start. She sank back in her chair and closed her eyes. In a queer sort of way she found her?elf regretting all that had happened in the last year. It was true that in the past she had always wanted more things than she could obtain, and she had built largely on the glowing and ambitious futuro which her mother had sketched for her. Still, she had been happy in those days. Far happier than she wa.s now. It all seemed to be so complicated. There was so much to consider. There was her anxiety about her mother. Her bitterness ngninst Shirley, her jealousy of Diana, and at the back of it all, that queer dread sensation of uneasiness which peemed to point so steadily to the fact that soonur or later disaster would come upon them. The voice of Valdez speaking quietly beside her roused her. "What is it, then? - ' the man inquired. He had a very pleasant voice, and spoke with a little foreign accent. "You sit so quiet, and you frown so much. Can't ft friend be of help?" Georgette sprang to her feet. "Why yes! I guess you can. Let's have the launch out and got for a spin. I seem all mussed up, and I guess the eea breeze is all that I want. Shall we ask one or two of the others?" Mr. Valdez said "no" so decisively that he brought back Georgette's good humour. After all she was a fool. What could there bo in the background that could bring disaster. Perhaps her mother was going through some bad time. Something in her past might have cropped up to make her unhappy, but why should that aflect her daughter? She gave a laugh, linked her arm in Valdez's, and they walked away together. (To be continued daily.)