VELVET AND STEEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

VELVET AND STEEL

By PEARL BELLAIRS.

THE REMARKABLE ROMANCE OF AN INDUSTRIAL DICTATOR.

CHAPTER XTV.—(Continued.)

He rang for the waiter and the waiter went for the manager, of whom Hannen demanded in French, a room for madame.

"Xo, no! Pour madame, seulement! Je vais ailleurs!"

He waited until he had assured himself that she would be well looked after, and then went out to find another hotel for himself.

Joan went up to a great cool bedroom, with a tiled floor and elaborately arched windows. When the French chambermaid had gone she lay wakeful in the big downy bed, listening to the howl of the wind. It was such a wind as this which had wiped out whole fleets and armadas long ago on the African coast, and Joan hoped that Maude and the boys and her father were not having too uncomfortable a night on the yacht, somewhere out there in the wild night. In the morning the sky was clear, and though the wind had 'dropped to a breeze, the sea had not yet subsided; it boded a rough trip out in the launch when the Corsair should come in. Joan went down to breakfast to find Piers Hannen sitting in the lounge waiting for her; she would have gone out on to the terrace at once to see if the Corsair was there, but he stopped her. She noticed that he was wearing a shantung suit which he must have procured in the town, since they had nothing with them but the clothes they stood up in, and she had been in evening dress. She herself still wore her white dinner frock. "I feel so absurd!" she said, trailing the long skirt distastefully. "Yes, you do look silly,"' he agreed calmly, and then, laughing at her annoyance, he added: "You look a perfect darling!" She led the way in to breakfast, and over it he told her of his adventures in the hotel in which he had spent the night. There were, he insisted, whole armies and battalions of fleas, which came out on the walls immediately the light was put out. He could not stay and have breakfast there, even in daylight when the fleas were in hiding; and so he came and had it with her. She had to laugh at him, and the breakfast passed pleasantly enough. After it, when they went out on to the terrace, to Joan's delight, the Corsair was just visible, making for the harbour entrance.

At eleven o'clock, after a wild trip in the launch, Joan and Hannen arrived aboard her. Captain Ancett was all apologies, obviously embarrassed by the awkward situation into which he had put them, but Hannen brushed his apologies aside. Mr. Denby, who had braved the ill weather without a qualm, said not a word about the night which Hannen and his daughter had spent alone on shore. He asked no question of any sort. Maude, very wan and worn out after the buffeting the Corsair had received in the night, was a little more curious. But she listened to Joan's explanation.

"Did he pay the hotel bill? You hadn't any money with you, had you?"

"Yes, lie paid it. What could Ido but let him!"

The chambermaid had given the receipted bill to Joan, and she had crammed it into her handbag without looking at it. Joan found it now ?nd gave it to Maude, who looked at it to see how much it was. But as the account was in francs and she did not know much about francs, she was no wiser. It was addressed, though, to M. Hannen. Maude pored over the French in which it was written, for she had picked up a slight knowledge of the language from Joan.

"They've made it out so that it looks like bed and breakfast for two!" said Maude, with a giggle, and she threw the bill down on the bed, where it lav.

"That's because of the two breakfasts. I wish I could pay him back!" :.aid Joan, making a slight grimace at herself in the mirror, where she was combing her hair after changing into a day frock.

Mr. Denby wandered in then, to sit on Maude's berth and tell Joan some more about the adventurous night at sea. Finally, when they all left the cabin it was he who picked up the hotel bill, glanced at it. and slipped it into his pocket when Joan's back was turned. CHAPTER XV. Wearing Down Resistance. Xext day was spent in taking a long car drive out of Tangiers into the desert; and on the day following, at dawn, the Corsair started for home. Happier now that her confidence in Hannen had been strengthened by his behaviour on the night when they were stranded ashore, Joan began to enjoy the holiday. The boys were full of high spirits, Maude was as brown as a berry, and Mr. Denby had acquired a habit of sitting in a deckchair all day, with his hat tilted over his eyes, dosing; which was a sure sign of a peaceful spirit in him.

Joan began to feel that she might come to regard Hannen as a friend, though her fear of him in any more intimate capacity she felt would never leave her. His nature had its kind and generous side and it was not for nothing that her two young brothers worshipped him.

"Mr. Harmon's a corker, ain't he, Joanny!".Ben said to her. "Is lie, Benny boy? Perhaps he is, in some ways!" So the trip home drew to its close and they were cruising up the Channel on a sunny morning'. "Well, are you so sorry bow that I persuaded you to come?" Hannen asked her on one of the rare occasions when they were alone tog-ether. "Persuaded!" she laughed at the word. "Your ideas of persuasion!" "You haven't been unhappy," he stated quietly. "Not a bit. I've loved it." "Joan—!" he began softly, but she grew frightened and reserved again at once. "I've been happy." she said, "because you haven't reminded me of why you brought me here." He looked a trifle dashed, but not utterly disheartened. "I think it's cured, isn't it?" "What ?" "Detestation!" "Perhaps—detestation <is. I'm not such a hopelessly horrid person, you know. I couldn't really detest anybody once I got to know them!" "Well, that's an advance at any rate!" Hannen said. At Southampton the boys were so sorry to leave the yacht that they almost cried. Benny, when he got into the roadster, actually did. Hannen went to London with them and there was not much room in the car. Mr. Denby and Maude and the boys were all in the back seat, while Joan and the chauffeur were in front. It was a tiffht fit for three, and Joan, wedged in between the

chauffeur, who was driving, and Hannen on her other side, was amply protected from the wind. The fact that she was crushed against the chauffeur hardly entered her consciousness, so deeply aware was she of Hannen's proximity. To allow her room he was compelled to sit with his arm behind her shoulders, resting on the back of the seat, and at first there was something suffocating to her in his nearness. But soon she became used to it and once when she was thrown heavily against him as the car cornered, he looked down at her and smiled with a sudden, unexpected tenderness; her heart raced, but her emotion was too powerful for her to understand whether it was unpleasant or not.

Suddenly she began to think of the scar in his ribs, and of the dancer in Buenos Aires who had inflicted the wound; and a violent anger shot through her, changing abruptly to a feeling of dreadful grief. She did not know why this awful sadness should suddenly overwhelm her, but she could hardly speak for it all the rest of the way to town.

When they arrived at Hooley Street Mrs. Denby met them at the door with a welcoming smile. "Are you too tired," said Hannen to Joan as the others went into the house, "or will jou come out to-night?" Her feeling of depression softened her, and something, some strange dawning of happiness, struggled through the ypnfusion of her feelings. When she hesitated he clinched the matter with a return to his old smiling dominance:

"I'm coming for you, anyhow. We'll go and see Georgina if you'd rather not be alone with me."

This was so encouraging that she consented; she did not want to make him too hopeful, and yet when he was charming it was impossible to be unkind. He drove off, and she went into the house to hear Maude telling their mother all about the wonderful, wonderful time they had had. The boys, too, could hardly keep still for the excitement of telling about it. Seeing them here in the mean, drab little kitchen she saw how changed they were, how sunburned and well. Hannen had been very kind; he could not have been more so. She lost her depression and felt «jer radiant self. Maude soon sent off to report at her sweet-shop, the boys ran out to play, and Mr. Denby departed for the public house. "Well, Joany, did you like it?" "Yes, mother, I did. Oh, mother, you should have come. It would have been lovely for you."/ "No, no, my girl. I'd have hated being on the water. What was all that about you and Mr. Hannen being left ashore when a storm came on ?" Joan told her. "He behaved ever so decently, mother. He isn't so bad, I don't think." "Do you begin to like him better?" "I don't dislike him any more." She was full of burning resentment, thinking once again about that girl in South America. "I suppose ho looks upon me as he looked on her," she told herself, after her mother had gone out to do some shopping, and she was putting the boys' clothes away upstairs in the dingy little attic. But still, she did not quite believe this. A few moments later she heard a rapping on the kitchen door, and as there was no one but herself in the house she went down to see who was there. She found the person already in the kitchen and recognised him as Al Brooks, the young maff with whom Maude was "walking out." Joan hardly knew him, and had only seen him once or twice, when he had come round to fetch Maude to go to the pictures in the evenings. He was a very heavy young man, with a short nose and bigred pugilist's hands; and he looked, just at present, very sullen and angry. "Maude here?" lie asked. "She's gone out to the shop, Al. Won't you sit down?"

"So she come back from her yacht cruise, did she?"

He threw himself into a chair, which creaked uneasily under him, and sat there twisting his cap. He was evidently much upset about something, Joan could .see; and then he burst out suddenly: "You went with 'em, did you? My word, it must a' been a preity party!" "We had a nice time—yes." agreed Joan, wondering what he meant. "Her and this Hannen. What does he want with a girl like Maude?" "I'm not aware that lie wants anything with her," said Joan, in surprise. "Huh! Tell us another. That's a good one, that is!" sneered the. unfortunate young man. "She thinks everything's -hue when he takes her in his car and take.s her on his yacht, and makes up to her as though she were a lady. Boasts to me, she docs, about all the soft things he says to her. What does he want—taking another chap's gel? Maude and me was walking out, wasn't we '!"

His anger appeared to be rising, and Joan had by this time guessed the cause of it. Her sisted Maude, following the principle that one must keep a man guessing, had told Al Brooks that it was herself, not Joan, whom Hannen cared for. It was easy to do, for A] Brooks seldom saw any of the Denbv family, save Maude. Disgusted with Maude for telling such lies, there was very little that Joan could say. She did not like to give Maude away, though as soon as she saw her sister she would scold her very soundly and force her to tell the truth to Al Brooks.

"I'm sure there's nothing in it," said Joan. "In fact I know there's nothing in it!"

Al Brooks, though, was not in a mood to grasp a hint readily. . "I'll show him—l'll show her, too! I'll bust him, I'll bash his face in. Where has she gone —she's out with him again now, I'll bet!" "Xo, she is not." "You tell me where she is, and I'll give her a hiding she won't forget!" "It worr't do any good! Be sensible!" said Joan, though she was rather nervous for Maude's sake, he looked such a hefty young fighter. "Well, will you look what she sent me from one o' them furrin' parts he took her to!" He produced a postcard in Maude's hand, stating what a lovely time she was having in Tangiers. "Mr. Hannen and me have just eome back from a trip in the desert." "Where is she?" he demanded. "Where's she gone off to now?" "She's gone to work," said Joan. "But I shouldn't worry about it. I knowthat Mr. Hannen mean anything towards Maude!" "So you're going to stick up for the feller too. are you?" shouted Al Brooks. He sprang up. fitted his cap on his head with a fierce gesture and rushed out of the house. (To be continued Saturday-next.)