THE ADMIRALTY'S SECRET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15807, 2 January 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ADMIRALTY'S SECRET.

BY CARLTON DAWE. 1

Author of " The Prime Minister." " Cleodora." " Straws in the Wind," "The Grand Duke," " One Fair Enemy," " The Shadow of Evil," etc. (COPYRIGHT.) SYNOPSIS. Lieutenant Alan Radley. seated in his flat in Westminster Gardens, hears someone trying to get into his rooms. He opens the door, and finds a fainting: woman, who, wtien she recovers, tells him that she mistook rua door for her own. Her name is Eunice Merion. He tells her that he is in the navy. She observes that he has some plans on his table, and mistakes them for drawines of a bridge. He tells her that they are drawings of the hull of a ship. Next day he is invited to take tea with Eunice and her mother, who is a Hollander. She affects to be delighted at meeting him. - CHAPTER 111. T.HK THKFT. Unknown- to all, except the aforementioned " lords," he had taken this little place in Westminster Gardens so that he might devote himself, undisturbed, to the serious work he had in band. And now all of a sudden that privacy was broken in upon, and mingled with his dreams of patriotism and glory was the thought of a girl with wide, inquiring eyes. He admitted that this girl, so latelyknown, seemed in a fair way to obsess the major portion of his thoughts. As 1 yet, not having sufficiently analysed i"is> obsession, he was not quite sure a' to the' gravity of the potent; but as it insinuated itself into all his thoughts, the thoughts themselves awaking strange tremours of the blood, he felt that at last he had encountered a proposition equal in complexity to his great invention. On the afternoon of the day following his introduction to their flat he happened: to meet Miss Merion on the stairs, and, acting on the impulse of the moment and the evident pleasure which this chance meeting seemed to afford her. asked her if she would go to the theatre with him that night, for which he had a box. She admitted that she would very much like to go, but " Of course, the invitation includes your mother," he said, though the thought of that mother did not seem to afford him unequivocal delight. Nor was he at all I depressed when a note was dropped through his door informing him that though Mi*ss Merion would r>e delighted to accompany him, she regretted that her mother was not feeling eaual to the exertion. Personally he would never have associated Mrs. Merion with invalidism in any shape or form, she seeming to him a' woman of a singularly sound constitution. Yet on the whole he was not sorry that one cannot always judge by appearances. It really all happened on the way home from the theatre, tie Had played the gal lant as only a sailor can. He bought her chocolates ; he would have bought n*r the earth had it been in his power to do so. Though the attractions of the stage were many, Ihey were as nothing to the attrac- ' tions possessed by her. To him she looked ! a creature of delight in her simple white . evening gown. He did not know she had i such a superb throat, that her head was . so finely set. He made no attempt to I conceal his admiration, and on the way I home in the taxi he kissed her. She" j started in just indignation, but he over- j whelmed her with apologies. "I mean it." he said. "I'm in Tove i with you, EunTce. I want you to marry me." Taken by surprise, she could only mutter some incoherent reply. Fortunately I the noise caused by the rushing vehicle \ and the shortness of the journey proved ; excellent auxiliaries to her, and when they at last alighted it was with rather a hurried step that she began to mount the stairs. He opened the door for her and took her hand to say good-night. "Are you very angry?" he asked. " I 'will try not to be." " But I mean it," be said, resolutely. "I hope you are not angry. I shall look in to-morrow for my answer Eunice."

"Well?" "I'm in deadly earnest." " To-morrow you may not be of quite the same opinion." "To-morroV: I shall be in still more deadly earnest. But to-night you are not an cry •She hesitated for a moment, glanced at him strangely, wonderingly, murmured " No" in a low voice, and then closed the door upon him. He re-entered his flat, lit a pipe, and sat down to think. Never, perhaps, had 'ie thought harder, or with more tantalising sensations. Hitherto the waking hours of his life had been engrossed with the development of his invention ; he had not thought it possible that any other interest could bear comparison with this. And now it all faded from his mind as though it had been a thing of gossamer, and in its place was installed the bewitching face of a girl, a girl of whose existence he had been in ignorance until a few hours ago. Early the next morning he went off as usual to the Admiralty, but an hour or so after lunch he returned, and then it was he who knocked at the door opposite. Admitted by the maid, he asked for Miss Merion, and was instantly shown into the drawing-room. She was sitting over by the window reading, but upon his entry she rose and without embarrassment extended her hand.

"I am sorry my mother is out," she said, with much self-possession, "but she mav return at any moment. Will you wait?"

" Yes," he said. He could not condole with her over her mother's absence. Indeed, he might have been singularly annoyed had he found the occasion cumbered by that good lady's presence. Though she went back to her seat, he stood, his back to the fire, and stared hard at her. She showed considerable tact in avoiding that look. "Of course," he began, bluntly, "you know I didn't come to see your mother. There arc times when one can very well dispense with mothers. This is one of them."

"You are a strange person," she said. "Not really _ very strange, though I don't mind admitting that I feel stranger now than I can ever remember having-felt. Do you know. I'm not a bit sorry tor what happened Inst night: in fact, I'm rather glad of it." "You were very rude." But in a way he almost thought she did not consider that rudeness an unpardonable offence. " I didn't mean to be. I just couldn't help myself. It was bound to come, you know, thinking as I have thought of yon, feeling as I feel towards you. I meant it then, and I mean it now. Do vou think you could ever get to care for me?" Strangely those large eyes looked up into his, but he was in* no mood fo r analysing that look, for probing its depth. He onlv knew they were the strangest, sweetest eves he had ever seen, and that the face which was turned to him set every pulse tingling. "If vou look at me like that." he said, " I shall do it again. I want vou to promise to marry me— any rate, I want you to promise to think over it. And please don't imagine that I'm rushing things, because I'm doing nothing of the sort. I've just thought it out as careilly as any man could—that is. any man who is head over ears in love, and I know there is only one solution." "Do I know it'" she asked. "' You ought to—none better—as it happens to he you. From the moment vou came to me so unexpectedly I had a sort of instinctive feeling that you had come for food."

"For good?" she questioned, with just the slightest tinge of surprise in her tone.

"Why not? One realises these things intuitively." °' She rose elowlv to her feet, and advancing towards him with a firm step looked him pquarely in the eyes. This is very strange, Mr. Radlev, and of course T ought to feel greatlv honoured, hut do you really mean what von are sav' ing ?"'

"Every word. I'm not th« man to say one thine and mean another." " ' "1 don't believe .you are. That makes me sorry you've said it. It would have made things so much easier if you hadn't."

" You mean you don't care for me. and you dont think you ever will J"

"I mean that we know so little of each other," she answered, weakly. " Oh," he said in his straightforward manner, "what does that matter? I think people like ourselves may trust our own intuitive good sense. Having seen you, Eunice, I know I have seen the girl I want. I knew it from the first moment I felt the touch of you in my arms. You're what I*ve been waiting for, my dear." " Please don't," sk<* protested. " You dont know what you are saying." " Pardon me, but I know both what I'm saying and what I'm doing. I don't mind admitting to you—l think you ought to knowthat I'm not particularly well-off." She made a quick motion of protest. " Oh, these things must be discussed," he said. "They're hateful, I know. Personally 1 should like to sweep them all overboard, but they are there, my dear, and must be recognised. Yet I don't mind telling you that there are prospects of better things in store." She started, her wide eyes searching his. "I can't say exactly what I mean—at least not at present—but if a certain event occurs, as I knew it will, as I know it must, then I shall have to withdraw even the imputation of poverty. He was smiling at her now, binding »' frankly, so reassuringly, that her own glance dropped beneath the ardour of his gaze Surelv nlain honesty never sat more onenlv on anv human countenance. His eves thorn with it, his lips quivered with "it Everv tone, gesture, look ot the man proclaimed the sincerity of his nature and the singleness of his purpose. "It's not that," she replied in a low voice; "it's jus*, what you ask cannot be."

•' Why not?" , . „ Please don't ask me to explain. You make me sorrv we have met." "Of course," be said, "you have reasons for saying this?", " Good reasons.' ; "And I may not know them?" "You may one day." " You are engaged ?" "No." '• Hut there is some other whom you— " No one." "Then that's all right." he answered cheerilv. " You've got to care for me, Eunice, and I'm going to see that you do. Just wait awhile. Things are going to boom presently, and then we'll talk with a little more firmness. Don't you imagine for one moment that I'm going to let you go, because I can assure you nothing* is further from my mind." " I wonder if all sailors are as rash as you?" she asked, a curious little smile curving the corners of her mouth. "We are onlv rash when we desire greatly," he replied; "and as I greatly desire you, so am I daring to rashness." "If you will have it so," she said with apparent resignation. " But, remember, I warned you." " I shall" take good heed of the warning, and love you all the more for trying to frighten me. I wish you really could frighten me." "Don't I?" she asked with a sudden strange ringing of the voice. " Not in the. least. It's true I don't profess greatly to understand women, but I think I understand you." " T wonder?" The words slipped from her lips as if of their own volition. She started, flushed, and guiltily looked round at him. But he was gazing at her with beaming eyes and a face so palpably frank that she almost instantly turned away a?am. " I don't even wonder," he said. " and what's more, I'm not going to. I know that one day we shall arrive at a full and complete understanding, and in the meantime I'm just going to complete the work I have in hand, and then I shall talk to you in no uncerta-n manner." " Then let us agree that the work shall be finished first," and she smiled. "Meanwhile, what of it?" " The ship you mistook for a bridge?" he laughed, ignoring the fact that no responsive smile came from her. " You'll hear all about it some day. and I rather think it may surprise you." "It is nearly finished?" she asked. " It is finished," he admitted. " Then you will soon be rejoining your ship?" " The order may come at any moment." "That means that you will leave here?" "I'm afraid it does; but as you too are going away there'll no longer be any attraction for me in Westminster Gardens. As a matter of fact, I heard today that I must hold myself in readiness to leave at an hour's notice. So you see," he added with a smile, "there was no time to lose."

"No," she said. Just then the door opened and Mrs. Merion entered. She still -wore her hat and coat and had evidently just come in. " Am I too late for tea?" she gasped, after she had duly shaken hands. " I'm simply famished for a cup." Her daughter instantly left the room to see about a fresh brew, and Alan Radley, in true heroic fashion, immediately opened fire. " I've fallen desperately in love with your daughter. Mrs. Merion," he said, and I want to marry her. Have you any objection?" "My dear Mr. Radley." she replied, darting on him a swift, penetrating glance. " while I duly admire your candour. I confess its precipitancy takes me a little by surprise. . What does my daughter say?"

" She can't make up her mind." "Perhaps she, too. was taken by surprise. You see, we have known you such a short time."

"But what vou know of me?"

"Is all to your advantage." Encouragingly she smiled at him. but he was not at all sure that the smile met with his entire approval. Mrs. Merion was in her way a handsome, attractive woman, perhaps too attractive for a prospective mother-in-law ; and she smiled with _ her lips, and her lips were thin. Looking closer, it flashed through his mind that her eyes were narrow and rather closely set, and that they were as vnlike her daughter's as eyes could well bo Indeed, but for a certain upstanding carriage, there was little resemblance between tha two, and in a way he was not sorry. As the daughter re-entered the room he prepared to take his leave. "I have already teld Miss Merion," he explained, "that I may be ordered to rejoin my ship at anv moment ; and so, if yon will, I should be very pleased if you would both lunch with me to-morrow."' Mrs. Mtrion looked at the daughter and the daughter looked at the mother. "Can we?" said the former. "Are we engaged ?" " I don't think so," the girl answered, but in such a manner as to suggest indifference. " T meant to ask you to dinner tonight," said Radley. "if you would have honoured me ; but I met an old friend at the Admiralty this morning who insisted on mv dining with him. I believe it's a theatre or music-hall after." '* We shall certainly be pleased to lunch with you to-morrow." said Mrs. Merion; " and are very sensible of the honour, Mr. Radlev," she added in her precise foreign fashion.

It was striking two o'clock when Alan Radley fumbled with his latchkey at the door of his little flat. He was by no means drunk, but he had dined and wined well, and felt cheerful and at peace with all the world. In ten minutes he was between the sheets, and the first quarter bad scarcely chimed before he was well asleep. He awoke early as usual, the sailor habit of sleeping and waking; having become a second nature to him.

His cup of tea and shaving-water being duly brought, he was in the act of stropping his razor when lie suddenly felt his foot come in contact with some soft mate rial which lav on the floor. Looking down, and being not quite able to make out what it was, he stooped and picked it up. It was a glove—a thin rubber glove ! He looked at it in blank amazement. How did it come there? To whom did it belong': He started. Of a sudden his blood seemed to freeze, his lips tiuiied cold. In a. moment he was fumbling with his keys upon the little cabinet that stood over against the window. His hand shook so dreadfully that the keys positively- clattered against the woodwork. Even when the key was inserted in the lock he wis almost afraid to turn it. When hi did so he saw that the cabinet was empty. His plans had been stolen! ■ . (To b« continued on Wednesday next.)