LASSIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14175, 25 September 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

LASSIE.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY HELEN MATHERS, . Author of " Com in' Thro* the Bye/'" My Lady Malincourt," " Cherry Ripe." " My Lady Greensleeves," ' Gay Lawless," Etc., Etc.

[COPIEIGHT-] CHAPTI-TR XXXI. A SPOUTING PAIR. Now with Lassie it ■would be another pair of shoes altogether, for men adored her. With her personal magnetism, her elusive, charming nature, a man would get out of hand directly, and all other -women would be sent by her to the right-about, including his mother; but there Lyndsay wronged the girl, to -rhom she had never at any time done justice. Lyndsay was with Eugenia when Roddy reached Hans Place, and he kissed them both and sat down and chatted before going home to dress for the dinner and play

to wmcu he was taking tne titrations. "Lassie is very well," he said absently, j " and. coming back to St. James' Place | to-morrow." He was thinking of his father, j and of how much he should tell his mother; j but Eugenia thought lie was preoccupied with Lassie, and the snake of jealousy stirred menacingly within her. "I told her we had all better get mar- ' ried on the same day," he said, turning . to Eugenia, " and that it really wasn't fair . to keep poor James Coulter waiting any longer." , "And what did she say?"' It was Lynd- \ say who put the question. " Oh! she'll marry him right enough," ' said Roddy carelessly. " Storys Gate will . suit her down to the ground. Jolly little beggars her brothers are— she pines after Waddles, of course. Now then, , mother"— Lyndsay went firstif there were a little scuffle behind her, a little delay before Roddy joined her, she only smiled happily— certainly no lover could wish for a dearer, prettier girl to make love to than Eugenia. On their way home in a hansom Roddy told her of his encounter with hie father in the train, and she paled as she heard him. She had always dreaded the two men coming to close grips at last. Roddy had been only a tall, handsome boy when she left Colonel St. Leven, and the day of reckoning that must come between them she had looked forward to in terrorthe evil gibes and jeers of the one, the burning resentment of the other at her wrongs—often she had seemed to see them in murderous conflict, as they would have been that very day but for Roddy's self-control and the impossibility of being any other than what he was. Yet as she slipped her hand into his, knowing that pri 'e in him which is a woman's crown of glory, for no " army with banners" is as terrible and strong as such a son to fight for her, Roddy was asking himself bitterly whether what had seemed an act of self-sacrifice for his mother were not indeed something of which Alick St. Leven himself might have been incapable? Is dishonour any the less dishonour because it is deliberately assumed to benefit others? Was his "I'd do anythingsuffer any disgrace to help my mother," that had been on the tip of his tongue to his father that afternoon, a matter for pride of shame? And Lyndsay was thanking God for him—the God who had let him come backso we say in our awful ignorance, in our uncertain tenure of earthly happiness, nor dream that the brief moment may not last. " And so you are going to make me happy at last, Fenella," said James Coulter. It was one of his " evenings," and they were sitting side by side in a quiet corner of one of the salons at Storys Gate. "I am going to marry you,'' said Lassie nonchalantly, " but I don't know if I am going to make you happy." " I shall, see to that," lie said quietly, and smiled when her beautiful, indignant eyes flatly contradicted him. The smile said that like many another spoiled young puss, and 'being in a position to dictate terms, she had abused her position, as spoiled young people will, and naturally was exceedingly angry at being pulled up sharp. She did not fail to let James Coulter know it, but the more trouble she gave him the more determined he was to get her, even if lie had given up the idea of her being a sheet of blank paper over which to scrawl indefinitely his own personality. Anyway," she said, looking awav from him as if his appearance displeased her, " it is quite impossible for my frocks and things to be ready by Easter! By Whitsuntide perhaps —" " I thought your father wished you to be married from "Mrs. Sellon's," said James. " Whitsuntide means, of course, a wedding at Colinshayes." Lassie's colour changed; she had forgotten that, and she turned her head away, and tapped her foot in a way that delighted James Coulter. She had been growing too sophisticated lately, and the more frankly childish she was the better he was pleased. "Well, then," she said, unwillingly, "it must be very quiet—from St. James' Place —and nobody asked but about half-a-dozen people" "On the contrary," said James, "Mrs. Sellon is going to be kind enough to ask most of my' friends —" " So you have talked it over already with Aunt Bob!" cried Lassie, her eyes very fierce and big. " Yes. It is to be from the Hans Place Hotelthey do you very well there—and as many people as can be managed—-nice peoplewill be given an opportunity of seeing my lovely little bride." "I am not little," said Lassie, drawing up the slim form upon which rich stuffs hung so gracefully; her brocade gown that night, with its interwoven stiff gold threads, exactly matched her eves. " It's it. hideous conjunctionFenella Coulter," she said, inconsequently. "Neither name is bad by itself—but together!" She turned an innocent face on him. "But, of course, I'm Lassie to my friends!" James Coulter glanced Lazily round the rooms. "It's all very well now," he said, but in 15 years' time, say, when there's another Lassie" growing up—" but with vivid cheeks the girl sprang up. and left him to speak to a man at a distance, and Roddy came over and sat down by Coulter. _ I " Jolly evening as usual." he said in his usual cheery way, but Coulter thought how desperatelv ill he looked, a bad colour, his nostrils pinched as by starvation, all the improvement lately visible in him sharply checked. " Fenella and I have been disagreeing, as usual," said James, "but this time over the wedding. I think she wants si, registrar, or his equivalent, while Mrs. Sellon and I propose a proper send-off." Roddy was thinking hard. He seldom gave advice his tact consisted not in what he did, but what he did not say. _ " You ought to be very happy." he said at last. " Lassie would like a little encouragement I think. I'm afraid her passion for writing is by no means so entirely eliminated as you think." " Anyone can write," said Coulter, " does write nowadaysbut to be an exciuisite human instrument that registers every emotion, or shall we say a reed for love to play his divinest harmonies upon " (Roddv winced). " that is enough for any woman." "You'll get the best little girl in the world for a wife," said Roddy, rather coldly. "Always excepting Miss Stratton, of course," 'said James quietly. " And when is vour wedding?" "Next month, I believe,' said Roddy; " it depends on clothes. ' He had a feeling that Coulter had never been less agreeable to him than at that moment. ".You ought to go abroadget into somcj decent climate till the summer," said Coulter, looking at him keenly, as they both rose. "0! I feel rotten," said Roddv curtly. He hated any allusion to his health ; it was only to a man that he ever admitted that he did not feel as fit as a fiddle, but Lesbia, who came up at that moment, heard him. "You have been going out without your topcoat again, Roddy," she said reproachfully, "end probably forgotten your quin-

ine. Well Eugenia will see to all that before long !"* " She won't coddle me. if treat's what you mean/' said Roddy, ungratefully, as be moved away. Try as he would he could never feel at ease with Lesbia'; with her there .was .always a .feeling that thing® were not what they seemed, though curiously enough Luther's warning about her was now regarded by him as one of those far-fetched ideas in which otherwise sensible people sometimes indulge. Nevertheless, cordially as she had welcomed him as a prospective son-in-law, grateful as she professed herself to be for the liberality he had suggested to Eugenia, he did not- trust her or fall in with her plans. She had thought it would be easy enough to take the pair abroad, away from Alison's and Coulter's observation, but he had declined to go, and Eugenia of course had backed him up. There was always the danger that. Alvanley in hie remote wilds would hear of the engagement, and immediately return, so Lesbia was hurrying up the dressmakers, ably assisted by Eugenia with all her might, and with their eagerness and Lassie's unwillingness it looked as though Eugenia would be married first. Bob, looking on with those shrewd eyes of hers that nothing escaped, thought that Lassie and Roddy took their _ tragedy at a merry pace ; each was, in sporting phrase, determined to have a run for his monev. even if an almighty smash were at the end of the run.

The moment Roddy and Lassie were released from their duties (and Roddy performed his to Eugenia with a thoroughness that, entirely put in the shade Lassie's enforced kindnesses to Coulter) they flew headlong to each other, _ full of themselves, their ideas, and business. They had much to say about the stable Roddy meant to start. He was taking up the mastership of hounds, for with characteristic courage, in deciding to play tho country gentleman, instead of living the life he wanted, he meant to live it so thoroughly as to leave him little time for thought.

Both were under sentence of marriage, he of slavery—and both braved it out, and were the gayest, wittiest company in the world ; they had the brave heart, and what else mattered?

Bob had a trick of rubbing her nose when worried, and she had rubbed it very often lately then, unknown to anyone, had sent for a solicitor, who drew up a will, by which she left half her money to Lassie and half to Roddy. " And now," she thought.,- as she signed it, "I can break my neck while comfortably hunting if 1 like." It gave her a sense of satisfaction to know that the two persons she loved best would (as she shrewdly suspected) enjoy the money together some day, while the hospitals, to which her whole estate would have gone, had she married again, got nothing. One felt instinctively that Bob's husband had been more an accident than a pleasant oasis in her life, and in fact he hardly knew a horse from a camel, and had shown his resentment at her tastes in the cowardly way. so many men do, and Bob had grinned, and with the greatest pleasure circumvented him, his unsportsmanlike conduct entirely relieving her of any necessity of regretting him, while she had known how to deal with the strictly dishonourable intentions (as she called them) of men who genuinely loved her for herself because she was such excellent company, such a capital sort, and quite good looking enough, with at times an odd resemblance to her handsome brother, Luther Latreille.

Now, as she sat alone, quite happy to j look on at the brilliant company, she sud- j denly caught sight of Roddy some distance | away, watching Lassie, who was in' a wild mood that night, and at that moment en- J couraging a distinguished, and in every, way desirable admirer who was only waiting for 8. chance to cut in and snatch her from Coulter, and Bob smelt mischief. " What a flirt the girl is!" she was thinking, "what a flirt!" as scraps of their conversation floated to her ears. "So vou have really promised to make that lucky fellow, Coulter, happy— of course be happy yourself "I hope to be good." said Lassie, "and I'm sure to be dull!" t , () "If you are-good, you don't look it, said the man in so low a voice that Roddy barely heard him, and in the same moment became aware of a most disagreeable sensation which so startled him that he turned on his heel, to come face to face with Eugenia, who covertly, but intently, was watching him. He took her at once to the dining-room, where they fell in with an old diplomat, and as the three stood chatting together Roddy's eye fell on the daring sketch in oils, "done" by a famous Italian impressionist, of the exquisite Andalusian dancer, and on his asking who she was Eugenia, whose heart was beating furiously at what she had seen just now in Roddy's face—stark, blind jealousy—said heedlessly : " A friend of Sir James' —she was at Aix last year." Roddy scrutinised Lhe picture closely, then remarked carelessly, " She is very good looking," but as they moved away the unpleasant impression made on his mind by the way Coulter had spoken of Lassie recurred to him. Glancing round the salon with new eyes, he saw the meaning of the beauty and charm of the women present, all past their first youth, and nearly all with that indefinite air of having trodden the paths of love that make a woman desirable or not, according to the tastes of a man— they did not appeal to Roddy in the least. It had struck him on his first visit here that he had never seen so many pretty women in a London room before. Coulter did not seem to make up to any of them, but still they were there, not one of them conspicuous for brains—Coulter himself and the other men found those in plenty. . No wonder Lassie, with her wild-briar [ freshness, her rose-white youth, appealed to the faded man with the splendid brow, the tell-tale mouth, half-hidden by the close-cut Vandyke beard that made one of the "points" in a face of which the individuality was too strong for mere beauty, but intensely attractive Roddy had felt it himself, the irresistible fascination of the —the fusing of brain and emotion that gave him such velvety softness of manner, such a magnetic power over all, and more especially the'women who approached him. Roddy's original feeling of distaste at a middle-aged man marying a kid" swept over him, and Lassie, at first dazzled by her clever man," had been wiser than the later Roddy, her fine instincts revolting against Coulter, thank God for that; but in the same moment realised that he, her old pal and friend, I had practically forced the unwilling girl I into the man's arms.

Later in the evening—and no one was more dexterous than Roddy in arranging apparently chance combinations — he caught Coulter in the dining-room alone, and by great good luck close to the picture of "the Andalusian. They stood talking for a while, and Roddy mentioned that while in Africa he had collected some curious and interesting information about the sinister "Arm of the Leopard" secret society, that he hop ed to work up some day. Then, as if by accident, his eye fell on the impression of the lovely dancer with her insolent air of having her heel on the neck of man, and he said : "A friend of yours?" "A friend of mine." Coulter had been working like a demon lately, as no man but he could work without killing himself; black marks were round his black eyes. tor a long second the two men looked at each other; there was no one within earshot. " And Lassie?" said Roddy, quietly " Fenella divides my life sharply in two," said Coulter, knowing well that it was to Roddy he owed his bride. " My God ! You may thank heaven you have never known it — the savage demand of the animal for his rights that makes one turn aside from severe intellectual work to playbecause there must be a good animal at bottom to be able to work— and if you don't recognise his rights, your brain stops—" Yes," said Roddy, curtly, "I—l do thank heaven I don't know it." His face was hard as when he had looked at his father, but Coulter's eyes were steady as he said : "And you? In marrying for money, are you any better than I am, even if you "do damn a fault you don't happen to possess yourself ? We all have to pay, one way or another, if we get what we [ want," said Coulter, auioilv. but Roddy,

wheeling round and away from hie host, thought" that the punishment wa# not very great that comprised Lassie. Before .James Co niter went to bed thatnight—or Hither, morning—he wrote, the following letter, wending it to an address he had obtained that day :— " Dear Alvaaley,—Roderick St. Lcven is going to marry Miss Stratton. He looks terribly ill. Any chance of your coming home ? —Sincerely yours, J.vans Con.TKB " (To be continued nest Wednesday,)