HEARD IN CAMERA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11731, 13 August 1901, Page 3

HEARD IN CAMERA.

And lie says now I'm going to be a decent sort, you know, and all that, I've just got to cut that Frivolity crowd." ' ■.'-, Daisy Whatmore pulled a single eye-glass from somewhere in the middle of a pile of type-written manuscripts, bound in brown paper, copies of the Era' and songs with affectionate dedications written on the covers. A signed photograph or two fell into the coal-scuttle as she did so. .The ''Frivolity crowd" was seated on plush chairs, forming a family semi-circle round _tho drawingroom, in Daisy's Bayswater flat. It was a newly-developed tradition at the Frivolity that Daisy's flat was a mutual tea-ground for the extinction jof joalousies on afternoons—any or every afternoon when there was no rehearsal, and the half-holiday maker put in no claims for a matinee. On days when the " ghost walked" guests brought angel-cakos and boxes of sweets from Fuller Daisy had no objection.

So, when she stated flatly and without reserve that she was engaged to Lord St. Irmin, her frionds, however intimate, never suspected her of being anything more underhand than a mere musical comedian of imagination. '.'.:'. Daisy's mimicry, as she inserted the eyeglass in the recess of a big brown eye, and wore it with the .insouciance of her past experience in "Roderick Random," that vastly successful musical comedy, was unmistakable. - . *'" "Don't bo a giddy fool, Daisy," said a i bosom friend lazily between two puffs of a ! cigarette, but she knew St. Ir«iin, and there was an un-pleasing conviction about Daisy's mimicry, the drawl of it and the stutter and tho strut, that made the company hesitate. " You's go-ot to quit it, Daisy, and ta-ake lessons in being, wha-at is it —a grand ! dame, y' know. Daisy went on toying impertinently with the eyeglass. "It's a ca-ase of cha-anging the tights for tho title. Wha-at V I

There was a pause and a hush, and quick glances interchanged. "Daisy," said somebody at last, "you don't mean to say he's— he's going to marry you '!" The suspicion voiced itself in the end. Daisy flushed, and considered tho advisability of losing ban temper. It may bo mentioned here that the detectives engaged on the case had to return to - their employer with "no report" as the not result. She rose from her chair and faced them with a sort of queer hoarse crackle in her voice. ;V- ---" Do you think this looks as if he -meant anything ?" she said; holding.up a left hand with its third finger protruding into the air at its full length. The words were inadequate, and Daisy knew it; but the circumstantial evidence was enough. Flashing on the third finger was a glistening, rose-dia-mond of the rainbow prism that makes women dream. Daisy was enough of " the profession" to reserve her stage effects for a situation, and :it had been nestling palm,wards until called for. It was unanswerable. No jeweller without a firm faith in the abiding destiny of tho Upper Chamber would have trusted St. Irmin, a man of mere courtesy title, for the. eventual payment for so choice a product of De Boers. The tea-drinkers bowed beneath its' spell, and Daisy revelled during a thirty seconds' triumph. It was by the force of circumstances short-lived, for as though to clinch the argument there was a long-drawn shrillness of the eleotric bell, and presently there entered a tall fair-haired lad with tho kind, mouth s that you know will lisp before you hear it speak. '"Lord St. Irmin," said Daisy's parlourmaid.

Daisy enjoyed herself. The guests saw the awkwardness of it, as St. Irmin viewed them callously, impudently, through the eyeglass which Daisy had mimicked. Phey waited just long enough for the imbecile politesse of listening to his commonplaces, and then rustled out of the flat as hard as might bo, to leave Daisy to her own devices.

The Earl of Carstone ■ received the announcement with but little surprise. It came to him first through the medium of the only man he knew who read On Dit. Ist. Irmin, the prospoctivo successor to the encomium and the " embarrassments of he earldom, had made Bohemianism, as it is understood in its latter-day developments, an objeot in life,, and the Earl by reason of sin ambassadorial* experience' was more cognisant of diplomatic methods in treating i; at or any other complaint than his son and iipir imagined. He said nothing to St. Irmin, and left the initiative to -tho culprit. It was impossible, of course, that the Carstono quartering knows now many '.— should ■ be relegated to the College of Heralds for an additional adornment of a lamp-bearing embodiment of burlesque. Put the Earl was content to abide his time. His efforts by moans of a detective agency have already been cited. He took counsel thereafter of Bcnn, Cartwright, and Cartwright, who were proud to acknowledge that their decades of holding tho earldom's japanned deed-boxes were exactly as extensive as the earldom's existence in centuries. " In these democratic da.y»,"_ said Lord Carstone, sardonically, to his solicitor, "' one hesitates to interfere with the well-estab-lished right of the son-and-heir to make a fool of himself. ! But, for myself, I have a preference for an objeot lesson in somebody else's family." . . . . - "You may remember, we extricated another Lord St. Irmin " The courtly old lawyer put a first finger on his uppe»; lip and hid the mirth of.the reminiscence with a cough. - ' - "Dead ) past, Cartwright, dead past. '1 -wish there could be 'cremation for memories." "Will you, on account' of the fact that there wasonce—Carrie Enson and V "That'll do, Cartwright. No more of it, said the peer, with a hasty irritability. "Well, will you. leave this thing in my hands and take my advice ?" , "One employs a solioitor to wash ones dirty linen—in private," said Lord Carstone ; and it was to the solicitor s credit that he kept his temper. ;■■_.:, f Twenty-four hours later the Countess of submissive, motherly, kindlyhearted as she was—heard with no small astonishment that a member of tho forthcoming house party was to be, by the Earl a especial request, a Miss Daisy Yfhatmore living far outside the pale, in the unexplored deserts of Bayswater, many a long drive from the Park. "The daughter of an old, old friend of my mother, * the Earl explained, " and recently St. Irmin mentioned nor name to me. I remembered the name at once. He met her at a dance somewhere 01 other. She's living all alone now, and it pure charity to ask her." So Daisy, in paralysed astonishment, found among her multifarious correspon-dence-advertisements from people who make v/igt new atrocities in the way of powder, confidences from bosom friends,; amorous notes from perfect strangers-an; invitation from Lady Carstone for a fortnight a stay at the outset of September and the partridge party at Elmleigh. ■ • '■ - • "-- • There was a plain-looking, matter-of-fact envelope,' whose contents Daisy read still mors amazingly. "Dear Miss-Whatmore, it said; "though fully aware of your relations with my son, Lord St. Irmin, I think it best foi tho present that Lady Carstone should remain in ignorance of your engagement. I wiih you to make her acquaintance independently of that fact, in order that she may make herself sure of your merit—of which I am fully conscious—before she understands you are to bo her daughter-in-law. Consequently 1 have told her you are the daughter of an old friend of mine, and I hope you will sustain that part as ably as I have seen you play others.—Yours truly, Caebtone. Daisy read tho letter more than once before she believed it credible. Then she trod on soap-bubbles, of the most iridescent brand manufactured. All the world, was light and airy, and full of kindliness, and it only remained for her to pack a trunk and be a countess in prospectu. There in Lincoln's Inn, moanwhile, was an impassive old man, gleaming in bright gold spectacles. He sat in his private room in close Consultation with a toll, dark-moustached youth of the square jaw and the languid accent that women love. "You understand fully what you. instructions mean, Mr. Wentworth. • You are to take Hawkins with you as your valet, and he, not you, is to make it evident you have £10,000 a year. ; You have only to live up to the hypothesis. , I believe you - can shoot?" , - . • "Yes,' 1 can hold middling straight, Mr. Cartwright," said the articled clerk, not without a sneering smile. "I think I know what you want of me." "Yes, and you know, I think, what Lord Carstone promises if you succeed." "I'm not doing this tors my health, Mr. Cartwright." i • - '•" -, The solicitor said nothing, but he looked as though 9 world were lifted off his shoulders in the discovery of someone who was willing to take Ids dirty work away from him and do it without attracting undue attention. Jack Wentworth was one of the house party to which Daisy Whatmore was invited, and he read his name in On Dit with not a little amusement, being more conscious of his locus standi than On Dit. But he lost no time in his mission and in that which he looked upon as.his dutyto himself. "■ ! . St. Irmin had lingered in Scotland dallying : with salmon when the grouse had gone to .their last Jong home. But the earl and his

I countess mado Daisy Whatmore as much a member of the family as though sho had been born in the purplo, bred to a consciousness of the responsibilities of a coronet,''' and brought up as St. Irmin's destined bride. And Daisy accepted ; the > situation without demur. Ever since she first set her foot-on' I the stage of the " Mirage"—an extra turn at I • tho —she had been of a constitutional I sang-froid. And she was as much at home | with the wondering women of title in the l drawingroom after dinner as she ever had been with her own sisterhood. ! A day or two after her arrival Wentworth, smiling, immaculate, arrived at Elmleigh, in aU tho > armour for a campaign. And a camI paign it was— sharp, decisive. Briefly j stated, Wentworth came, Daisy saw, Wentj worth conquered. . j Dances thoro were at Elmleigh—net formal | balls, of course, but just a wet afternoon and ! men tired from shooting, shifting into dry j clothes and pumps, and waltzing in th© ball- | room with anybody to play the piano. Thereat was Daisy—naturally the best dancer in the room. Had she not lived for it? Went\W>rth could waltz more than a little, and people used to stop dancing to watch his performances with Daisy. Really they woro.worth sooing. There was a stiff county ball, where everybody from the ! duke in the adjoining county to the tintitled country gentleman who had reluctantly consented to honour Carstone by being its Mayor, was present. , St. Irmin was to have boon there, but angle-mania kept him in Scotland, and so Daisy, in her giddiness, showed an unexampled propensity for 1 conservatories. Provided Wentworth was there to sit out with her and apologise to tho neglected partner' afterwards. • Then to Wentworth came a headache—so he said, and men made remarks about getting a headache on soda-water, for Wentworth was abstemious, according to instructions from Lincoln's Inn.

But the rest wont shooting and Wentworth did not. Also Daisy found excuse to escape from the bicycling expedition which was to meet the gunners in a glade at lunchtime. And tho kindred souls remained behind. There are shrubberies at Eimleigh—hollies of over so many years' growth and there are also other concealments. Servants who stray in, tho grounds on days when all the household is at a shooting lunch might wander ever so far without seeing anybody or anything. So to Daisy and Wentworth there came a preconceived .opportunity, and tho flirtation reached its climax. Into the details it is unnecessary to enter. It wag just as one might say .-> flirtation, with a kiss or two for the coronation of it all. Quito harmless, but still positive. There was a curious click at the moment, audible in spite of tho thrill of the kiss.

: Daisy left Eimleigh just three days later, just 24- hours before Wentworth returned to receive guerdons from his employer. And within a fortnight she had heard from St. Irmin that until the day of doom they must never meet again. Daisy, heart-stricken—for, really, apart from the countess-ship of it. s-ho was fond of tho oaf—spent three days in tears and one hour with a solicitor. For she recovered preFence of mind enough to remember that there is a Court of King's Bench, and that certain letters in her possession were distinctly marketable commodities. Mr. Eaves, of Bedford Row, saw her point of view at once—on a basis of 25 per cent, of damages, ho to take all risks, and get an advertisement. For Daisy Whatmofe's name can be used to conjure with under all circumstances. And the suit was begun. • A week after proceedings were taken Daisy received a telegram from Mr. Eaves summoning her to Bedford Row without delay. "They're going to tako it all back," she cried gleefully. "St. Irmin's going to do as he said he would."

Eaves sat in a faded brown-leather chair, and told an office boy to show Miss Whatmore in at once. _

"Mr. Eaves! Mr. Eaves! this .is good news, I know," said Daisy, noisily dancing into tho room.

"You think so?" said the stolid lawyer over his heavy dew-lap. "Look there!" " He opened a drawer and extracted from, it a photograph incriminating Dhotograph. There were the Elmleigb hollies* the box- ' border, the long-drawn series of dahlias, tho sunflowers in the middle i distance. And there, in. the high light of the picture was Wentworth, his moustache pressed to Daisy's lips. The half-unnoticed click had been that of a kodak. Wentworth's accomplice' had pressed the button. Mr. Cartwright had done the rest.-: "I fear you have thrown away your opportunities. Miss "Whatmore," said Mr. Eaves, icily. ' " We can't go to a jury with that evidence against us."