LONDON LOVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13650, 18 January 1908, Page 3 (Supplement)

LONDON LOVERS.

BY MARGARET BATLLIE-SAUNDEItS,

Author of "Saints in Society."

COPYRIGHT.

C'HA TTKR. • Vl.—(Continued).

Ox-her noisy -way downstairs she encountered Winnie, who was singing over her occupation of placing some- big peonies she had got from the butler in a- great silver bowl in the lull, and' smiling to herself. J he peonies v.ere pink and cream, and massed themselves gloriously, with . heavy heade that tumbled forward in the sheer richness of their own beauty against, the great fans of their fresh green leaves, Winnie, still in her morning robe, looked up laughingly as her pillar-box red sister-in-law came rustling down tho stairs. "Well, Constance," she -said, "how do you do? You look very well. How are the babies?" "How do you do, Winnie? I wonder you could) not come and. greet me when we see so little of each other." Oh, you am ho early and I am skill in my morning wrapper. X daren't, Constance." "Do you call this early? It is after eleven o'clock. It rather gives your London habits away, Winniein a breakfast gown at eleven-thirty J No wonder you look pale and fagged. You know notliing of our healthy country ways, I see." "No," said Winnie, who, far from being ' fagged,' was blooming like her pinky peonies ; "I always think tho country would make me red and political. 1 think that's to be avoided. J. ve somehow got that idea. It's all very well in the morning but it's so hideous in evening dress— a cabman, somehow. Isn't it?" . " I think if. would do you good—develop you into quite a line woman," said Constance,. surveying Winnie's tall and tender shape, outlined in its trailing black, through her hideous lorgnette. ''Oh, I don't want to be that,"' said Winnie; " I should have to have everything boned. That's the worst of fine women. iiiey want so much tying up. Only tailors can dress them. Women can't get them dragged in for love or money. Besides, they boast so. And anything that takes to boasting is weak. Aren't these lovely peonies V ' ■ " 1 " Yes, lovely. And when are we to read of your marriage, Winnie? 1 hear Pamela Pilkington is engaged to young Rawner, Lord Strathspipe's heir— saw it announced in the Court Journal. An excellent match for her. But, of course she is a beauty. All the eligible men are being snapped up, though, by quite plain girls. You must hurry up with your announcement —I have looked for it at breakfast—we breakfast early—many a time, and said to Hardwinter, 'I don't tee Winnie here!'"

" Oh, time enough," said Winnie, cheerfully. If you breakfast so early you'll have all the longer to wait! Don't you let the bacon and kidneys get cold on my account. ■ Wilful waste makes woful want. A day might come when you wished you had interested yourself in ba«on rather than my little affairs. It might make you thin, Constance. Don't risk it." Her sister-in-law departed' in dudgeon, raging angrily wliwi she got" home of the absolute ingratitude of Lady Sarah and Winnie. She declared it was no good doing anything for people ; they were alwavs so hideously ungrateful! But during the course of her righteous lamentations she must have impressed her husband with an idea of Lueasort's usefulness, lor he made several inquiries into the matter of Ronnie and, his affairs. So that, though the opera supper was so ruthlessly smashed on the head, by what Constance called Lady Sarah's abominable meanness and silly pride, Haniwinter himself willed on Lucason at his city office, and upon " running an eye over him" and apparently finding him " feasible" invited him to a restaurant dinner to meet his family. During the course of that most eventful day (to Mord) he himself took Ronnie round to" his club, and rather tentatively mentioned Lord Hard-winter's visit. Ronnie was greaiiy interested. "He's, a" good fellow, my brother/' he said. That's true," said Moid. "He doesn't look strong. Is lie?" "No, dyspeptic. But it's partly religion— he's"very High Church, you know. And it's partly that black moustacne of his makes his lean, old mug look leaner. My sister hates that moustache —wants him to cut- it off." " Does she''" said Mord. "Yes, she can't stand moustaches. Never would let me grow one, said Hon- ] nie cheerfully, though to Mord's eye it seemed far mote likely that time was to blame for this unkind restriction, rather than Winnie. But he went home and pondered. And when the great and glorious evening arrived and he was introduced to " her" people at Princes he was observed by the amazed Ronnie to be entirely metamorphosed by having shaved off his " moustache.. So en, tirely different did he look without it that* for a moment, in the crowd of arrivals, Ronnie did not recognise him. When, however, the truth dawned upon him he began laughing so immoderately that Lucason had to use moral force to crush him .before making an appearance before the rest of tho party. Lady Sarah's first thought on beholding bran was. one of relief. "He only looks lite an actor after all," she said, sigh* jug serenely.

Why,'' said Constance, as Ronnie and '3 Lucison approached to join 1 them, j " th«| If man i.« positively nice-looking'. He's like ;'•/« Wiilh-n rorrisa." •' ~ r '~m Hard winter said, "What's happened-to , M i..... He looks younger." - ) The only sad part of the whole thing S| was \yinnie w.us not tuere. The elusiveije«» .wE of the ideal his been commented" oft by poets in all ages. ' La'y Sarah had -mail#'' ;<SJr aged to M».w.ggl«> uia one away at the la*ti \'sM mini.. partly as a ' ub to Constance, anti '£$ partly owing to a vague idea of precaution ilin case Lueason proved "'not feasible." ; Ml Hut Hardwinter i de a tremendous fuss |j§ of him, having taken a liking (or him and '|§ seeing hi.* 4 possibilities, monetary • audi : otherwise. He invited biro down to Hard- '|| winter Abbey for the shooting, and almost. ■*§ forced biro to name a date. * Nevertheless i| 60 far the moustache—the first and votive sacrifice —was offered up* in \am. i CHAI'TKU VII. j-| "Well uiv *»«." said Mr«. l.iKason th» | « .lav. "and 1>"» ** >?» had your n new friend*? Have you nude auy head' „.i wav with them?' . 4* 8 " Headway What should i mase. ~j "Ah. well, you're not so ambitious M >|f 1 ilia I iiraut. " l'»>it you could have found cj out some way to lend Lord Hardwintcr | nionev, I'll be bound —if you d mod. | "Oh. ii didn't need any uyicg* ~*» needs it badly euongh. . „., .J, : " And did "you do so'.'" | ••No," said' her son, shortly and tdaiosi I angrily. Mordcvai, vou ure not as clever .# I ■■ Well, Mordecai, vou are not as ctaei | as 1 thought vou. ». know the man wanted J to build a hospital or something, and you | could, having got your foot m it. Uav# J made him vour debtor for life. . , | Mordecai" paused and looked at' »>J | mot tier. She was perfectly amiable, and :J was sitting at ease with that air of COW* 4 pkte and entire, idleness that- only Jewess i seem to Ik- able to manage in it* full perfection ; an idleness perhaps more apparent than real, as the busy brain often ClrtTO than balances the recumbent body Mid folded hands. What was ii. ho said to himself, that made his mother seem different to the old days? lie bad never thought to criticise her. or to find fa ill" with any of her ideas and habits of tttitid. Yet now hey were beginning to produce upon him a strange offset of irritation. leaning back there in her mauve frock. -*, with her fat hands stiff with rings folded so placidly, and enunciating her simple beliefs, born of and reared with her long training in poverty and exile and disgrace, she now for the first time seemed somehow ignoble, lint, he. could not have, told by. " Once and for all,* he said, "I don fr want him for a debtor. 1 like the man. 1 like him for himself. There isn't anything ho. can do tor me-and 1 don't want it'll there is." he added halt to himself/ a sulky, puzzled look in his sombre eyes. " Then you've no thought for us.'' Ins sister called out. from across the room. »ho was busy hunting over some very cheap flannelette and thin woolly things, got at a. sale, and covered with tickets recording gradual reductions i:i various coloured inks, with a view to making up a parcel of;the verv worst of then: to send to a charity with a really distinguished list of . patron* after her own heart. The better ones she would keep for presents to servants, at times when servants really expect them,, and you must give something. "1 never said I'd do anything for you, said her brother, not so much ay glancing; towards her. "1 certainly never ought to have expected it," said Lilla, going on with bar charitable work, and tossing her dew head. You have ceased to have even tin* commonest, instincts of relationship," " I have wa-sed to want- U> got adv/ih* . tages out of my friends," said he, "if that a-, what vou mean." "Oh, dear!" said Lilla. "Then if you, are so high-minded why don't you .sack the idiot brother? I should show my acortt dramatically!" " I've no doubt you would," ?ai«") Moid, rising aud pulling aside the chocolate-lipjc window-curtains, and opening the window on to the balcony with a view to a qukt smoke a, way from his sister's tongue. "Only I happen to like, the idiot brothor. as you call him. as well as all the te&b 6£ them." " As well as the sister''" o.'

"You know nothing about the sister.*' " Neither do you." , , " I know her to bo a woman— aw adder," lie muttered, as he slipped out on. to the balcony, and left Lilia picking off the innumerable pinned tickets that showed all too plainly the value of her sale-bought* charity wares with an air of moral superiority. _ ■ ' But if his family all this time found hint a disappointing aflv, even something of an unexpected fraud, they dare not interfere beyond a certain point, having begun to recognise in him a dogmatism and obstinacy hitherto almost unsuspected. . . . To his mother lie began to present.some,of- the puzzle that a duckling, hatched by mistake ill a chicken brood, presents to- the hen who sees it swimming for the first time. He seemed to be able to mako " headway," as she called it, with these Hard winters, when | she and Li 11a, though clothed as Solomon and much more effusive, had not succeeded in getting beyond a given boundary in tho acquaintance. . Had lie not in the first meeting been asked down to the Abbey? Yet his attitude was-so far from servile or anxious - that ho was even putting.off the visit on one pretext or another, and tacitly refusing to enter into even the mildest discussion of his friend.-, with Inn mother and sister. She could not make him out. But by and by Hard winter repeated- his invitation in a note addressed to the city, and did this so pressingly that Lu'eason decided to accept it. This shooting was -an excuse. He was a had shot and out of practice in that way; but he wauled to scci Winnie's first home and birthplace for" himself; to learn more about her by looking at her natural surroundings, about as appropriately as one might be 'glad- to go to Paradise to study the habits of a bird op paradise, it" ]»•• had but known it. That was all lie wanted, he said. He didn't care for tho invitation from any. other point of view. It might even be & bore. • He had heard several things about Hardwinter when he had put leading questions' to men who moved more in that world than ho did. A little contemptuously!..bp' had received the news that Hardwtnfer was, wretchedly poor and very cranky, had .in* notion of business, had a* mania for his'old Abbey, and was odd-tempered . and dys- . peptic. It did not sound inviting altogether. ' But he was told that the Abbey was in-i teresting—a celebrated show place. Thai sounded more worthy of Miss Waring. So he drove up to it through the park, unconsciously contemptuous in advance of the want of moans and want of wit. that are the instinctive bugbears of his industrious race, but prepared for that correctly picturesque setting for Miss Waring. He found the Abbey a kind of shock—for it' was far from being an Abbey. It stood on a hill surrounded by a glorious old wooded park, but. in itself ;>ppv-ired to be a collection ol various <-*1/1 wings and houses and small towers all jumbled together with a reckless disregard to style. It had tho appearance of a set of Urge, old-fashioned table-casters. There was the west tower which answered to the mustard-pot, being short and square. There was a kind of airy campanile at the ea#t side, built by a travelling Hardwinter who had done "the " grand tour" in tho days of the dandies, which answered to the pepper-pot. - A* group of really fine dark-red Elizabethan' chimneys locked like cayennes and anchow sauces. For the body of /<#».» V Elizabethan, and some few portions-' were 1 ' two centuries older than that. Butshea« relics were entirely overpowered t>y fhi artistic efforts of later winters, whe had cheerfully let bits get on fire' and had T ' then rebuilt them in the forWV of Swis* • chalets, Italian campaniles, classic,temples, • or cheese factories, as the "'faiode of th« * " moment dictated. The resuK was htftero, " genecus but instructive. If'ifirew such inr'"" interesting light on the characteristics of this noble race, • ■»>' (To be continued on - W"i*dnosd:iy icxt,) ' ,