WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18887, 9 December 1924, Page 5

WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

.BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE.

Author of "The Face of His Dreams," "The Lone Wolf," "False Faces," etc., etc. (Copyright.) U-~. . —. CHAPTER XXXI. Mr. Pusey had plumped down 011 his knees at the feet of Nelly Paramor, not in worship, but in anxiety to fuss with folds of material that to his captious eyes, didn't set as well as they should have. " Let me make you a wardrobe, Miss Dracup, and I'll guarantee you'll catch a rich American husband." "Thanks ever so," the Englishwoman curtly negatived. "But it's my notion to be loved for myself alone." f Mr. Puscy continued to worry the folds. 'Every time one sees something exquisite, like that," Miss Dracup plaintively confessed, "it makes one positively sick of sensible clothes." "Well! I can tell yo one thing." The dressmaker hopped up and fell back to consider his handiwork, with head on the bias and the narrowed eyes of an artist: "If I were a beautiful woman, no man would ever catch me with a sensible rag on my back." "Perhaps it is true that clothes don't make the man" —Miss Dracup achieved an accent of pragmatic conviction"but nothing is more certain than that clothes like that make the married man." "Isn't that the truth?" Pusey in high glee piped. "All the same, Miss Dracup, 1 should perfectly hate to see you married." "Precious little fear," the girl in disgusted brevity asserted. 1

At this juncture the man. Andrews, entered the study, bringing Nelly a card on his salver. Hie quick flush of pleasure with which she scanned the name was pretty to see. "In the drawing room, Andrews? Say I won't bo a minute." Tho servant withdrew. "Help me with my shawl, please, Mr. Pusey. It's Granny," she threw to Beth perhaps a trifle consciously tailing to see the sudden inexpressiveness that covered Miss Dracup's features like a cloud of constraint. "I don't want to keep him waitingl'm expecting somebody else before long; so I won't stop to change." Tho Chinese shawl was draped over her, and the smile of an animated schoolgirl rewarded Mr. Pusey for his gallant office. "I must fly " "Oh, but, Mrs. Paramor!" That wail stayed her, she humoured Pusey, whimsically patient. "You're going away to-morrow " "On the Twentieth Century, Limited." "To be gone for months—" "I won't say thatperhaps not much more than a month."

"But about your other gowns ?" "You can be making them, and have them ready for me when I return." "Oh, thank you so much! But, aren't I to see you again before you go?" "But, of course! Come back this afternoon for tea —come & bit early; that will give us time to talk over your plans. And— all but —Miss Dracup will make out the cheque now, if you don't mind waiting." The first thirty seconds or so following passed in silence but for the savage scratching of the secretarial pen. Then Mr. Pusey sighed himself out of the trance of adoration into which he had lapsed, • "Isn't she the sweetest thing!" he melodiously murmured. "I don't -wonderthat men can't resist her."

"Why, Nelly!" Peter Granville had been given a glimpse of the warmlyilluminated study, as the door opened and closed. "You're all lit up! What's the occasion?" With the more excuse in' view of the quaint disguise she had chosen, he added:' " Amateur theatricals T"

"A dress rehearsal., Granny," the woman laughed, and let her shawl of ivory-tinted silk slip down till only the ends, Jooped over her forearms, saved it from dropping about her feet. "Don't you think the dress is worth it?"' "Can't find words to tell you how well." Eyes of admiration fondly dwelt upon that ' charming revelation. ' "If you could have seen my bills! All the same, this simple little frock is one hundred per cent. American. Who do you think made it for me Miss Dracup's favourite seamstress!"

"Pusey ?" Granville gave a snort of intolerance. "Blessed if I understand what Evelyn sees in that alley-cat to deserve the amount of mothering she wastes on him."

Nelly had slipped a hand under his arm. and was leading him towards the front of ' the room. But now, opposite the arched opening that gave upon the entrance hall, she halted, overcome by burlesque astonishment, with an explicit indictment in the amused eyes that veered to his. "Evelyn!" He reddened. "Why!— !—isn't that her name?"

"Aren't you sure?" His arm was subjected to a playful shake. "I was surprised to fin'd vou liT.rrr her so well—that is all."

"Oh!" he artlessly parried "a slip of the tongue " "Beg pardon, Mrs. Paramor." The man-servant, passing through the hall, espied her and paused. In his arms a box rested, one of those long and narrow pasteboard coffins that fashionable florists provide for a spendthrift's hopes and fears. "Where would you wish " "Oh! take it to my room, please, Andrews.''

"Come regularly, eh?" Granville sourly commented. "Every day at noon?" 1 "Yes," she said, in unfeigned ennui— "every day at noon—if it matters." "It matters to me. You know only too well how I feel about you, Nelly." Then, he bungled, bulking above her with the dour consequence of a hanging judge, "you can hardlv expect me to welcome these evidences'if you-.' infatuation " "Infatuation!" she flared at him — "Oh!"

"Don't like that name for the way you're going—do you? "You didn't mean me to like it—did you, Granny?" "I used it with intention." "To wake me up to your opinion of my misconduct? I quite understand." . "I know what reward one reaps for such oftkiousness. Nolly. But it's somebody's job to wake you up before it's too late —and apparently nobody clso cares enough for you to risk your displeasure." "You at least are generous enough to assume it's not yet too late."' "I know, of course, you're frightfully angry with me." "On the contrary, I am deeply touched."

" You can't, know how it hurts to hear your name everywhere coupled with Perley's. All New York knows what Perley is!" "At least," her lips with embittered precision framed, "admit it's my name I'm imperilling, Granny, not yours." "God knows I only wish ii were mine!" "Perhaps you don't want me to understand that your idea of protecting my i.;ood name is to obliterate it!"' "Afraid I don't follow " "Blot it out with yours." "You ;know," he stubbornly contended, "how long, how well I've loved, you." "I'm much inclined to doubt if the good name of Mrs. Paramor is worth so great a sacrifice." < lie li hindered —inevitably—upon the wrong interpretation. "Must you sacrifice so very much if you marry me ?" "It wouldn't be mv sacrifice, Cranny, but yours alone." "Mine!" Friendship knows no test more _desperate than marriage—my dear friend. Lacking love, the experiment is toredoomed. I've no mind to Jose a friend to get—merely—a husband." "'Merely'!" Granville remonstrated— '"but a lover, too."-

. .J "0 Granny Now; she turned lon him, afire with affectionate indignation. "How can you lie so to mo?" ' -: . , "I?" He gaped—"l lie to you?" ■ - "You do not love meThe asseveration had ' the true ring of unshakable conviction: '''Let's not deceive - ourselves, Granny dear. Love that's denied doesn't '•> last so long—love can live only on love requited. You loved me once, I know"—she enveloped him in a great glow of> tenderness—"but that was Jong ago." - . "How can you say such things?" the : M man groaned. ',: • "It is true; and the time has come:; 1 when we no longer have any right to triflo with the truth, you and —when S% another's claim outweighs our weakness for nursing romantic fictions." \- • " 'Another's' ?" . . ' T"*"' "Evelyn's." The word fell with cool deliberation. "Didn't you know, Granny?" She • leaned towards him, a hand closed over his. "Well! I knew. I've been watching you two fall in love for months and months. It was beautiful, my dear: I loved you better for it." "But." he feebly stammered—"but Nelly, I—T " / • *'• : "Does it hurt so much ■* to forgo that f old illusion, Granny—that A you had ' always loved me, always 'would ?" She softly sighed, took away her hand, ; and rose. Ana, in awkward silence, the man got up, too. * ' ;' "So all good things end, my friend. I shall miss the dearness of thinking I still had you to love m*. But you and I are better off without illusions." /: " Nelly. I don't know what to say." "Let me say it for you, Granny." . She rested her hands upon his should-; ers, drew down his head, kissed him stood away. "And between us all is. said: the rest is Evelyn's.

(To bo continued daily.)