LONDON LOVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13701, 18 March 1908, Page 10

LONDON LOVERS.

SY MARGARET BAILLIE-SAUNDERS, Author of " Saints in Society."

rOTLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XV.—(Continued.) A few days after this she came across ;,ill rt . and Mrs. Lucason at a sort of charily fcto at the Botanical Gardens, to which she incl Lady Sarah Lad been invited in a eer•iiin patronal capacity. The affair was given by a group of those good Jewish ladies who had taken up Naomi Beubenssohn's scheme, and Mrs. Lucason had at last gained her glorious point of getting Princess Eitel of Scholtzenburg to open it, and was now in something like Paradise ; her idea of it, that is. It. Mas not the time of year for garden fetes of any sort, but the large, glasshouses and club formed a good centre for the stalls and reception, and just as it happened a t-pell of sudden mild weather, with intermittent bursts of pale sunshine, ma do the lawns also useful for such outer and movable paraphernalia as the palmist's tent and Hie bran-tubs, and the fish-pond, and the bat-trimming competition, and the other exhibitions of familiar wit and diversion. Winnie, thinner, and older-looking, but lovely in her unpaid-fur furs, created a certain sensation amongst the women, the furtive, grudging sensation that beauty must make, even in an assembly Lent on currying social favour with a perfectly indifferent German Princess. Lady Sarah spoke, condescendingly, even with a certain vinegary playfulness, to Mrs. Lucason, who presided vastly, in high feather. Mrs. Lucason took it all in the very best part, though there was a hint of east-wind in Lady Sarah's smile; to the large in discriminating observation of Mrs. Lucason Lady Sarah was a poor, dear, hard-up aristocrat, rather foolish as this sort was usually, but kind to come, oh, yes, and her bonnet worth studying. And' how did they manage that unspeakable savoir-faire, and come out so superior to other people without boasting? Well, dear me, one must push to get on nowadays. These people were like belated moths, of a very beautiful and delicate pattern, but doomed, now the sun was up. The sun, to Mrs. Lucason, was the moneypower, the supreme force of a determined policy for self and family Jews always include family. To every enormously successful man of them there is a tribe of probably quite incapable hangers-on who are sacred because they are of the tribe. It is one of their most interesting aspects, that instinctive fidelity to elan. Winnie was presented to any quantity of dark-eyed ladies —one states them to be dark-eyed because their hair did not always matchand was almost deafened by the noise of both sellers and buyers, the bewildering nature of the bargains, and exuberance of the toilettes, against which she looked almost severely clad, in spite of her furs. Once or twice she was overcome by a monetary bewilderment as to how so many rival materials and gew-gaws could be got into one toque, and all borne on one head; and she gave Up counting the jewelled things that adorned these gorgeous dames. -Yet over all the scene there presided an air of supreme good-humour and amiability not always found in the assemblies of the more strictly garbed and more pinched of tongue; and Winnie was inclined to be amused and responsive, and show to this strange, selfconfident world of Mord Lucason's her most engaging side. -Of course he was not there. She knew he would not be, partly because he avoided such entertainments as the plague, and partly because he must have known that she was asked, because her mother's name was on the cherry-coloured and gold programme, and she knew that he must and would avoid her. But Lilla caught hold of her, just as Mrs. Lucason, in a heaven of pride, dragged Lady Sarah off to present her to Princess Eitel, who was alternately fitting with a peevish expression surrounded by a crowd, or having little lanes made for her amongst the people, and looking at side entertainments with a very bored expression of what plump face you could see under her tight-spotted veil. Lilla had greeted the Hardwinters upon their entry but now took her opportunity to catch Winnie alone, and try to satisfy home of her curiosity about her. Her brother's change of religion was of course known to her, and though she did not in the least disapprove, as so many of his friends had certainly done, she was agog j to know why it had occurred and what he j was going to get by it. So she approached Winnie in her most Gibson manner, with her chin peaked up and her eyelids lying Hat on her face like two dish-covers, but a iinysSittle screw at the corner of each nostril intended for a genial smile. She v.-as extraordinarily overdressed, yet not welldressed, and created the impression of a huge ship set full sail as she bore through the crowd and out on to the lawn where Winnie was, chatting to two friends. She made some commonplace remark, and I having succeeded in drawing Winnie's at- i tention, she said : . j i ''My brother enjoyed his visit at Lord I Hardwinter's very much. He's been again j . since." The heavily-lidded eyes sought Winnie to see how much she knew. Winnie was on her guard at once. i " Oh, that's good of him," she said carelessly. "They're very dull down there, and : very churchy." ■ ■ - "1 hear that Lord Hardwinter is a reli- i i gious man." said Lilla, still scrutinising j < Winnie. " You know, of course, that Moid ' i has contributed to the Abbey restorations? j He's quite in love with it." | 1 "Yes. very nice," said Winnie, ambigu- j . ously. 1 ' "He likes that —that scut of church— M what they call 'High.'" said Lilla. I "Yes?" Winnie looked pensive. "My brother has similar testes in church aud ! fame: he likes (hem both high and carefully j : dressed." j ' Now Lilla was in a dilemma. She was j ' dying to know whether Winnie had been j < told of Morel's conversion, yet she dare not ; ask openly, because such a course would be ] telling Winnie of a fact that she spent , her life in denying—thai she herself was a ' Jewess. She could not allude to her broth- ' era religious affairs without a tacit admission of her own family's origin, and as " Winnie was not to be drawn, she came to J ii standstill, for once in her life, between " Iwo of her strongest passions—curiosity and i paltry shame of that which should have . caused her none. She was always ashamed , onlv of the wrong things. Winnie rapidly changed lite subject, see- j big her friend's position quite as clearly as i , though die had openly stated it. " "What is this affair quite for':" she said. ' t '•I'm not altogether clear. Is it lor girls \ in the city, factory girls?'' ; Oh, factory people, and so on," said j Lilla, who invariably adopted an air ni : never having heard of such canaille. "It's ; a thing of my mothers, and some people j . we know. Moid invented it. lb got, his I idea from Lord Hardwinter, 1 believe. 1 understand you were interested in doing ' ( things for your tenantry in some way your- J i self?" ' i, Again the gleam of curiosity. j - Winnie glanced luck at her, and very ! f slowlv her face Hushed, for she remembered ! \ Mord's words, " You were an angel." I ' "IV she said. "Oh, no, you mean my '<• sister-in-law. She is very philanthropic.'' "My brother said you," Lilla persisted, [' watching Winnie's embarrassed fare. " I ;i believe that was why lie started this. 0: ] 1 tourse we employ has of work-people, lie j has started all sorts of things for them— s I'm sure they don't deserve it!—which he t »aid he learned down at Hardwinter—from ' rou. We were all very interested." Her ' .►yes showed it, very sharply. ji But Winnie was' proudly silent. He I bad said nothing of this idea and the news ' of it added another sting of self-re- ■ proaeh to those from which she was already ■' suffering. Nevertheless, this rudelv curious woman should not guess it, even if .she ' tried eternally. "And does the—the charily need " funds?" she asked in a most conventional ( voice. " Dear me. no." i : ''Then why are you holding this fete?" ' ' Oh, : it was the only way to get the * Princess interested in it, of course. One ; .cant drug her down to the city. My

>, mother insisted on its being held, just so as the Princess Eitel's interest would be aroused." "But why do you want her interest? You don't want her to contribute?" "Contribute? Certainly not She's as poor as—anything ! ' We could buy her up , any day. But of course it's smart." Winnie laughed shortly "Why don't you hand her the proceeds?" she said. "That would be a fair arrange- ; ment, if she is so poor." But Lilla never smiled. J '* Oh, money never comes amiss, even if you've got more than you can count," she ; 'said airily. "It's everybody's duty to go ! ' on making all they can, it strikes me, in a : world where, so much is needed to get on at all. I'm sine I've never got too much, and we're supposed to be rich. I'm always making it myself. One wants so many things." "Making it?" said Winnie, now really astonished. "You — How on earth— Oh, ■ bridge!" "Hear, no. I hate games of chance. Selling things. 1 mean." Her dull eyes lighted at last, in response to the inner 1 fire of her one supreme passion. "Do you know how 1 paid for my dress for last. Court ?' " No." said Winnie, half laughing, "upposing it was a joke. "By selling your prize Chows'/" "Oh, something much more original than that. I've done that tor years. No, I made a hundred table centres at a pound each," she nodded her head with enlarged eves, "and sold them to my friends." "" But—-but—wa.s there a sale for them?" said Winnie. "Don't people usually have all these things in any case?" " I made a sale." 'said Lilla. "I left them at their doors and called for the money in three weeks' time. Most of them had to buy. They couldn't very well afford to quarrel—with us.' Winnie'-- eyes, had gone rounded too. Lilla was quite serious, aud Winnie, who had been puzzling her own wits for money for so long, was staring at her with a kind of mixture of admiration and repulsion. And that this woman should be his sister! He had thrown his money at her own and her brother's feet, and this complacent, heavy-lidded creature could storm her friends' houses to make ttiero pay for her Court dress ! But she was at- least industrious; she had worked. "It must have taken you ages to make a hundred table-centres," she said. "Oh, well, it took time. Jsut I had a .sewing-woman that I've known tor years. She's a cripple, so she takes less money. What with her help, and getting the materials from suburban sales, the outlay wasn't much." Winnie, breathed heavily. "I hope the dress was lovely!" she said. "Did the cheap cripple make that too?" "Dear no. Madame Chiffonette, of Bond-street. One must have a good-woman for that sort oi thing. It was embroidered in silver all by hand." "In designs of crutches?" said Winnie, unable to keep the scorn out of her voice. "Crutches? No. Lilies," said Miss Lucason, coldly. She did not see the point. Winnie shrugged her shoulders. She felt that she must shake off this depressing tradeswoman at any price. The sordid recital had filled her'with a disgusted sense of kinship to this money-grasping lady, a sickening feeling of being one in the same. degraded fellowship of getting money anyhow, at any cost, with which to make a show. It was true, she argued. She herself was poor and well-born and had a social position that almost amounted to a public one to keep up on next to nothing, and Lilla Lucason had none of these demands and troubles: but in a large sense, she said ' to herself, they two were very much the same. It was for show. It was for*' show that she had originally played for/ the money she had lost to Leger? and it was still for show that she was retaining the change from the cheque that Lucason had given her. It was only that she might spend it on herself, or i what she called the " necessaries" of her I existence. She was not in the least repentant, but she was furious, at that mo- ; nient, that Lilla should unconsciously ; drag her down to her own level; furious that she could not in honesty turn round now and tell the woman what she thought of her, as she would have liked to do. She gave a sort of characteristic shake of herself, and making some half-laugh- • ing remark with rather a dry-sounding laugh, she deliberately turned away from Lilfa and walked across the lawn to the 1 j big glasshouse and pretended to study some winter exotics by the door until some friends caught her, and she was ; reclaimed by Lady Sarah. She found her mother talking to Mr. , Mosenberg, the gentleman of literary influence affected by Mrs. Lucason when , she required her own doings well report- , eel. His little thin, peaky face and his huge j spectacles were in ■ great evidence as he looked up at the grey and stately Lady , Sarah and gave her freely of his social ' views, with all of which she disagreed , so entirely that she had been utterly speechless tor some ten minutes. He ask- ' ed so openly to be presented to Winnie ' that she had to do it perfunctorily and j would then have drawn herself and her daughter away, only Winnie thought the ' little rat-like face looked odd and paused 1 a moueni to answer some remark he .' made. As usual, his strange notions vere 1 expressed in a manner sufficiently bom- } basfic to attract even the attention of a t distrubed and preoccupied stranger like l Winnie, and she was involved in a string * of suggestions before! she was aware of 1 it. He had all sorts of plans as to how o the world ought to move, expressed with t gesticulation and invective, and Winnie regarded him so completely as one of the £ side-shows, like the bran-tub or the hat- 1 trimming, that she stood at his side, and 1 stared at him, feeling vaguely that she ought to pay somebody for her place in ( the audience. c By-and-bye, out of the muss of his chat- i (er. she gathered informal that he had i just started a newspaper, which was to a be, he said, both " literary" and " s.oeie- ii ty" in tone. "Bui, aren't there lots' already?" said s Winnie, with raised brows. v "Lots, my deal' young lady? Not one, d since Addison! Not one, as ( mean it. ? Society notes, yes, but not in the vein of f Lamb, with the wit of Walpole, the satire of Thackeray. That is what we Want, o Not. to say that every debutante and bride ], is lovely, but to call her, with kindness, j {, what. God really made her. Not to state i \ untruths, or even mere facts, but to put , the news always to a. fanfaronade of wit, ~ humour, and literary gaiety ' Oh, I see )• what, we want, we dull, dull English— K( you see in me one sorrowfully naturalised ! , A —we want to have some fun without being wicked to laugh, nob to throw mud. v Why is there, with us, no happy medium j y between gross flattery and mud-throwing? n Between fawning and kicking there, is, I i t indeed, no room for wit. But that is what I am going to try and dare to do. L All my news of well-known people to be <. of the best, iirs-Miand, and nut in die j " smartest, spirit, of wifdoni and fun — the , Ariel of literature." i "And what is your paper to be called?" j ,V "The Bon-i-iof," lie replied. "ii will ! '.' ill contain man v." , . " You ought, io ::<-. Mr. Cheyn- to con- j " tribute—he cannot contain hi:-. said '"' Winnie. I "Cheyne-Cheyne? Ah. yes, Air. Paget - Ohevne. I wish he would. Mi.-: Waring, I ''< I wish he would. 1 would v.ay well we j°' have immense capital, 1 am happy to say i,! —for contributions from one so well in- |•" formed. lint I baldly know him Do i you, perhaps? Do von write yourself? •-'' The cods have given ■- on the brilliant j eve!" ' si _ "•• Have they?" said Winnie, " Well, I b I'm sorry to say thee must have put an O.U. j si after ii to judge from the little good it •'■ brings me '" i a: lie laughed delightedly. " 1 want j d society articles; smart stories of re-.' life, a got firs", hand." he said. "] believe you ,'..: write, and 1 know "be bowed very low, ''You arc a fortunate young lady moving ei in thai world of which I require, copy." 1< Winnie shook her head. " 1 write so h little thai I've forgotten how to spell." c she said. " I correspond on the telephone-." m lie whipped out his card. " Well. „ there is my telephone number," he said. e " If ever you have .anything crisp and sensational, vet quite-—quite nice. I shall be 0 de—" ' ' . h Winnie tool: it, and left him, laughing e , at his chatter. Crisp and sensational tilings certainly had a way of occurring ~: to her personally, but whether they were , ' always nice was another matte, * ' 'To be continued on (Saturday n«it.) jl-