GWYNN OF GWYNN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14223, 20 November 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

GWYNN OF GWYNN.

BY HALLIWELL SUTCLD7FE, Author of " A Man of the Moors," " Ricroft of Withers." " Toward the Dawn,' " Shameless Wayns." " Mistress Barbara Cunliffe," etc.

[COPYRIGHT.]

CHAPTER Vll.—(Continued.)

Sato wondered what the other waywas and again he felt a sense of disappointment. ' Tp be sure, it was absurd to think that a straight-set-up lad such as this should not have Iwd his affairs. Yet an affair with Lady Gathorne might mean more than a .few - love-passages, and he had hoped— ■ i I He was disturbed in his musings by a hasty ring at the bell, and by-and-bye a frail, flaxen-haired little woman was ushered into the room. She was neither old nor young, but her prettiness was of a youthful sort, and she carried it with a grace that even Saul could not deny. "Oh, you're here, Gertrude! I thought I should find you here," she murmured, in a languid voice that suggested, in some queer way, the medicine bottle and the discreet practitioner. '

Yes. mother. The moonlight was so j tempting, I" thought I would run across and surprise Ralph." The Countess of Linden smiled prettily upon the pair. And the smile meant pleasure, and proprietorship, and an utter absence of surprise. " Let me introduce Mr. Dene to you, aunt," put in Gwynn, with nervous haste. Our now neighbour, you —and a very pleasant neighbour, too." The Countess surveyed Saul Dene with interest, after making a delicate bow — surveyed )nm as if he were a new species of the race. , ' • '' Charmed, I'm sure," she said. Gwynn of Gwynn was palpably uneasy. < He scented danger, yet could give no i name to it. And his cousin, noting this, smiled softly to herself, and rushed off into a whirl of small-talk. The Countess, meanwhile, watched Saul Dene, and there was something very iike satisfaction in her face. " You must think us a strange family, Mr. Dene- " laughed Lady Gathorne, as at last she rose. " But, really, you know, Ralph and I are more like brother and sister than,anything else, as I told you.' Saul nodded without conviction; and again Gwynn of Gwynn wished that he were sure of Lady Gathorne's sisterliness. Presently the ladies went out by the French window, and Gwynn' saw them as far as their own door, leaving Saul to watch them from the window. He did watch them., with a smile that merged into his customary chuckle. s "Oh, yes, they're pretty, these 'folk,' he murmured. "To see the mother and daughter, walking there in the moonlight, you'd think they were lilies that had eloped from some quiet garden-bed. They're dashed poetic— look at.' Gwynn of Gwynn came back by-and-bye, and glanced humorously at hi» guest as he sank into a chair. "I don't approve of this sort of thing," he said, with a peculiar emphasis that made Saul Dene reflective. "It was all very well when we were young, Gertrude and — and we're cousins, you know, and all that but—" He checked himself, ashamed of the impulse that had made him confide in this new acquaintance. "You don't encourage it?" put in Saul. " No, I don't. Women don't understand these things." Still, Gwynn could not, or would not, understand his eagerness to make the position clear to Phyllis' , uncle. "Don't they?" chuckled Saul. A '■■ weight was lifted from his mind; for he had a quick perception, and he saw that Lady Gathorne had held the reins in this night enterprise. " Not a bit," went on the other, innocently. They want to do a thing—for fun, "you knowand they do it. That's why men get credit for being such fools," he added, oracularly. Saul slapped him on the leg. "My view entirely !" he cried. " Women play the fool, and we call 'em saints, and say what fools the men are. After all, women are bottomed on sand ——except little Phyllis. Heaven bless her !" " Except . little Phyllis," murmured Gwynn, with a smile at his own folly. There was a long silence, and th<m they fell to talking of horses once again, and each revealed to the other a deep and subtle knowledge of the subject. "You'll not stand on ceremony after this, Mr. Gwynn?" said Saul, when at last he rose to leave. " Just ride over any time, you know, and we'll find you a bit of meat." • He lit a cigar, got into his coat, and stepped into the high dog-cart waiting at the door. Then, with a last cheery wave of the hand, he was off at a rattling pace. " He's a man, this Saul Deene," muttered Gwynn of Gwynn, as he watched him turn the corner of the drive.

As, indeed, he was. And Phyllis was a maid—the prettiest maid, Gwynn thought, that ever came to lighten a dull world.