WHEN WOMAN LOVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18888, 10 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.) CHAPTER. XXXH. "0 Evelyn!" From the drawing room doorway the most casual voice Nelly Para nor could manage hailed her secretary. "Finished with those proofs yet?" She didn't come into the study, notwithstanding, but lingered 011 the threshold with an odd smile, contemplating the younger woman. "Yes, Mrs. Paramor," she pleasantly replied, dropping her pen, and sitting back from the desk—" just finished. Something else you want me to do?" "Please, if you don't mind; take care of Granny for me — got to run and

change." "No," said Miss Dracup; "I don't mind—if you think he needs a caretaker."

"I'm sure he does; he's too dear to be trusted alone. And, Evelyn, you have that shopping-list "Yes, Mrs. Paramor?" "I find I shall have to leave everything to you this afternoon; so use your own judgment. I'm lunching out —unexpectedly." It wasn't like her to be so cheaply secretive; but Miss Dracup, thus left at liberty to draw her own conclusions, divulged them by never a shade of expression, but only, to the hearing ear, by the entire absence of informing inflexion in her perfunctory "Yes." "And I think you'd do well to take a taxi for the afternoon, and bring everything back with you. Our trunks must be ready by nine in the morning." " Yes, Mrs. Paramor." " And now," her employer wound up with a superfluous announcement, " 1 really must run." She vanished from the doorway, Granville took her place, Miss Dracup stood up. " Oh," she observed. Granville saluted her with a bow that spelled some slight embarrassment. He seemed, indeed, to a degree nonplussed to find that the door had closed behind him, if not of its own accord, at all events without his assistance; as.if he hazily divined an unpropitious omen in that. "Good morn —that is, afternoon." " Accepted as amended." Miss Dracup remarked with approbation tho samplo of sunny weather contributed by the western window, then set about tidying up the desk'. " What are you doing here, this time o' day?" / " I just dropped in . . Miss Dracup gave the man a long, hard look, made her mouth severe and, with a wag of a deploring head, pursued the detail work of her office. " Waiting to take Mrs. Paramor out to luncheon, I suppose. . ." He had a try at a smile, but succeeded onlv in looking more than ever at a loose end: "No." "Well, then! what is tho excuse?" " ' Excuse ' ?"

" Your excuse, if you've 'got. any, for standing around and looking like that." " I'm —ah —thinking." " If that's what it does to you, receive a friend's advice—take something for it." " That's what I'm thinking about." "Well, don't mind me, I'm sure." "See here!" In sudden but by no means sprightly animation Granville strode to the desk. " What was that

Nelly said just now?" he darkly demanded — " something about having trunks ready by nine to-morrow morning ?" _ ' "Hasn't she told you V' Miss Dracup so far relaxed her studied austerity as to betray faint amazement. " We're off to California, booked through to Hollywood. Isn't it thrilling?" "But California!" Granville cried, as if aghast. " When was that decided „ ?'>

" Last night, sometime in the stilly watches thereof. I imagine. At all events nothing was said about it up to midnight; whereas my first errand this morning was to run down to Forty-Second Street and arrange about our bookings." " But what under the sun has got into Nelly ? —flying off like this without notice."

" Even if I knew—and I don't say I do—is that, in your opinion, a fair question ? Mrs. Paramor doesn't tell me all her secrets; and if I guess at some of them I'm not going to own up to the impertinence." "Are you going with her!" "0i course, I'm going with her." The inspection Granville had now to undergo candidly impeached his sanity. "What a mad question!" " This," the man with move calm; flatly stated, "is simply impossible!" "What is?" Gran- 'lie wandered away, to bring up at length with both hands gripping the back of a chair and gaze, plumbing bleak vistas of despair. " I know! Annoyance lent tang to the exclamation " You've been at it again —proposing to Mrs. Paramor." " No " —Granville shook a dismal head —"that is, not exactly." " That's your own fault, I'm afraid." The desk was now in order. Miss Dracup turned from it. cheerfuly to give the poor, crushed creature the graco of her acrid worldly-wisdom. " You never ' exactly ' propose. Anybody could sec you'd drawn another blank to-day." " No," the man mournfully denied, " we hardly got that far." " As far as what ?" " As far as what you suggest." " I suggest you've been proposing marriage to Mrs. Paramor again. If you didn't get that far, I'd be interested to know why not." " Well, you see " In desperation, Granville abandoned the back of (ho chair and took his fate in his hands instead. " I made a discovery, of a sort, that rather " —hero his store of hardihood began to dwindle—-' 1 that sort of— that in a manner of speaking—" Well, what was it?" " I don't quite see how," he. faltered with a lost look. " how at the present moment I can tell you." The girl slightly frowned, waited another instant, snubbed dumb appeal with i •hrug, and marched towards the door— a manoeuvre which crushed him to a pulp, pulsing with anxiety. " T say, please—where are you going?" To get mv luncheon." " Butsee here-—half a minute. I want to tell you about, this discovery I made." She brushed back the cuff that covered her wrist-watch. " Half a minute, I think you said ?" " It. seems." Granville all at once gave out, with guilt written large on worried features —" it see.ms I'm not in love, with Nelly any more." Miss Dracup moved slowly back, with no more interest in her watch : " And when did you make this famous discovery? Or did she make it for

you ?" " Well! in a way, you know, she made it for herself." Now that the worst had been confessed, Granville seemed to find' the necessary words with greater ease. " I'd been suspecting it myself," he owlislily owned up, " for some time. But, you see, I never dreamed she knew." That's not surprising," Miss Draetip opined. " You wouldn't." "It has rather keeled 1110 over. I wonder if you'd care to have luncheon with line to-daysome place The Englishwoman considered the invitation sedately, studying its author from under level brows, thumb and forefinger pursing her lips. " The Ritz is amusing," Granville wistfully urged. ~ "There might, be. some novelty, slit mused aloud, " in lunching with a man who's flying to talk about a woman that he isn't in lovo with. " No, really! I don t want to talk about Nelly."

"What do you want to talk to me about

" Us," he plumped out forthright, gave her an appalled look, choked up, and fought down his weakness ' like a man. " That is, ourselves— mean, you and

"See here, Granny!" Miss Dracup's professional training here served her well, she went to the point—" are you giving me to understand you mean to make mo a declaration to-day?" "That's it; I want to ask you to marry me." " Just after you've been turned down by another woman?" He forlornly nodded, gulped, contrived so bring out a frightened " Yes." , She said nothing for a time, whose seemingly endless protraction visibly threatened his reason. .Then —You wait here till I get my hat," she crisply said, and a second time made for the door.

Two strides put him between her and that escape. " You— mean you will?" " After praying for this for nearly two years?" The girl indulged one of her rare smiles. " I should say Ido mean I will

" You think you love me enough—" " Wait a minute." A peremptory hand fell on Granville's forearm. " You go too fast, Granny. I'm militant feminist —but there's at least one stake in the business of life where I believe man really ought to take the lead." He took it, together with the hint. " I love you so much," he told her gently. She went straightway into his arms, hugged them to her, luxuriously sighed. " Do you, Granny?" They kissed. " You know dearest " —a shadow of compunction drifted over' the radiance of adoring eyes—" this is going to be an awful blow to poor, dear-Mrs. Paramor." " Losing me ?" "Vain brute!" she laughed aloud. " Losing me, of course. A woman can always find a substitute sweetheart; but a perfect secretary is another pair of boots." (To bo continued daily.)