OUR NOVELETTE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XVI, Issue 602, 31 December 1904, Page 3

OUR NOVELETTE.

"SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT." '(Continued) Th© only person in the Thrirverton's liouso party who wore an expression which was entirely happy and unconcerned " was Wilmot Eyton, the celebrated author, who was -reading a column and a half of violent abuse of his latest book, "The New Morality," in a Nonconformist daily paper with very natural delight. Winifred Sturry, in a delicious white frock, suddenly stopped behind bis chair. Between her beautiful eyebrowß therje. waß an anxious pucker. Without a word to Byton she began to blow a fluffy-heided weed earnestly, "It will, it won't, it will, it " ' Byton dropped his paper and his chair around. "It will ox^wion't what, please?" he asked curiously. "S-s-s-h!" she whispered. "You must not breathe a word yet, or I, shall forget where I am." SHe blew again. "It. will, it won't it— — '■'■ ' ' "It won't," said Byton tantalisingly. "I am certain it won't." ' • Winifred Sturry deigned to take no notice./ "It yfonp— — " "It will — TA' certain it will." . She blew the last tiny piece of fluff away. 'T.t will !" she cried, witli horror in her voice. "Oh, isn't that top dreadful for- words? What- will pod^Mr Thorverton say when I tell him?" Aud 1 did try so hard to make it stop at 'it won't!" She flung the woodless stalk away with a gesture of despair. Byton made a dash' at the stalk, captured it, and held, it tight. He then silently offered his chair to the girl who, he had avowed to himself for solne time, was, as far as he was concerned, the only girl the world contained. ' "If the result of your Ju-ju,-" he said quietly, with the ' utter callousness of a man who knows his world, "is likely to affect Jack's health, why not tell him that it did stop at 'it wpnt'?" Miss Sturry darted at himU^a look of shock surprise. "Tell a lie, do- you mean?" Byton assumed an air of righteous indignation. "My dear Miss Sturry, you surely don't think that I should ask you to do such a criminal thing? I hate lying. I merely threw out a hint that, if you think Jack is likely to suffer if you tell him the truth, the wise plan for you to pursue is not to tell it to him." "But what's the difference between telling a lie and not telling the truth ?" I think yon have grasped the fact that Wilmot Bytpn was, and still is, a writer. There is no need, therefore, to tell you that he seized the chance of saying something really clever and memorable with both his hands. "AH the difference," he began, with an eye to a new chapter. "A lie is a false statement uttered to deceive. The truth is a true statement of principle for the purpose of making enemies: A statement which is not the truth when it is uttercsl to deceive someone who 1 would rather bo deceived is an act of true friendship, of which there are many examples in history." "Oh!" said Winifred, in the pause, for want of something really original to say. Byton was warm to his task. "A man who never tells lies," he continued, with rare enjoyment, "but who seldom tells the truth, is the only man who can be happy though married: To him the midnight jangle, the pre-breakfast bicker, are things unknown. He is also a man who will inevitably become an ambassador, or get a seat in the Cabinet. But he would be an utter failure as a society novelist." (To be continued io our next isßiie.)