HIS FINAL CHOICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18888, 22 December 1924, Page 7

HIS FINAL CHOICE.

BY ARTHUR APPLIN.. Author of "The Greater Claim," "The Woman Who Doubted." "The Pace on the Screen," etc., eto.

(Copyright.) CHAPTER VHI. Dolores had taken off her hat and was lying back in one of the luxurious armchairs, facing a log-wood fire which crackled cheerfully in the grate; the windows of the sitting room were wide open; they overlooked the Green Park, and the hum of traffic rose from Piccadilly. On a little table by her side was a tray of coffee, liqueurs and a box of cigarettes. Her head-was pillowed against a soft cushion. She could just see the reflection of her head and shoulders in a mirror above the mantleshelf. She had taken in every detail of the room, and she let her eyes wander round it again, gratefully conscious of the simplicity, the luxury, and the wonderful sense of peace and rest it gave., Luxury— something for which her soul and her body had craved for years. Life for Dolores had always been (since she left her convent school) a struggle for existence, for the bare necessities of lifo. She had put up a good fight, but sometimes she grew tired. She grew tired to : night—it was the contrast of this luxurious room in a fashionable hotel with the top-floor-back she rented in a narrow street off the King's Road, Chelsea. Mansfold was talking. "You know who I am, all about me. If you want to know more you've only to consult the newspapers!" He gave a grim laugh. "Now, will you tell me all about yourself." She smiled a little wistfully. "It would take rather a long time. And remember I'm a woman! The only secret a woman ever keeps is the one about herself!. . . I never saw my father. He died soon after I was born; my mother when I was nearly five years old. My mother was an angel. My father—" she made a gesture with her hands. "I don't think he cared much for us."

"How can you know whether he cared?"

"A child has instincts and, looking back . . . But that doesn't affect you. When mother died her income died with her: she had an allowance or an annuitv or something, I suppose, and we had tieen fairly well off Though she was extravagant by nature she had saved a few hundred pounds which paid for my schooling at a convent just outside Brussels. I stayed there until I was nearly eighteen, then went out to face the world with a capital of fifty pounds and the humblest, stuffiest little wardrobe imaginable." From his seat in the shadows Mansfold smiled: a strangely subtle smile: "You should include your beauty among "your other assets." ''"*

She said roughly: "Beauty is not always an asset. Perhaps your daughter has discovered that already." Mansfold rose impatiently from his chair, controlled himself with an effort, and throwing himself back into it sat for a few moments, his eyes closed, his gveat hands clasped tightly together. She had hurt him.

"I have been everything, from cloakroom attendant at a Casino to reception clerk at Swiss hotels —private secretary to an Italian Countess, and artists' model in the Latin Quarter of Paris. This is the first time I've visited England; the Italian Countess left me a hundred pounds, so I took a holiday in order to visit my native country." "You are English, then?" "Mother was. Father—" Again that expressive little gesture with her hands. "You have no relatives or friends over hero?" She shook her head. "Acquaintances ? "

"Paul Lamotte—that's all—at present. One can't do much in a fortnight. And Paul is business really. I sat to him in Paris. He's all right, but friendship with an artist with whom one works is dangerous." Mansfold nodded approvingly. He got up, switched on the lights in the candelabra which hung in 'the centre of the room and planting himself in front of Dolores looked at her critically; looked at her with cold, piercing eyes. Presently he asked her to stand up, He crossed the room and made her lay her hands in his while he looked at thorn. She bore his scrutiny and examination unmoved. She was accustomed to it, she had learnt how to arm herself. But before Mansfold it was not necessary. "Now sit down again, my dear, and listen. I want you to take my daughter's place." "I guessed that, of course. In the restaurant you tried to make Colonel Carfax believe I was your daughter and that I'd just been bluffing him. It was not quite fair to either of us, was it?" Mansfold stood with his back to the fireplace, his hands in his trouser pockets. The flames had died down, the charred logs glowed and a faint, pleasant perfume from the smoke drifted through the room. The sound of traffic from Piccadilly was subdued now: it was the quietest hour of the evening. Mansfold said: "One ■ can't play the game for both sides. I'm playing for my side." Dolores looked at him thoughtfully. Life had taught her to be astonished at nothing that happened, least of all at the unexpected. • Here was a situation so strange, so intriguing that for a few moments Mansfold's suggestion, though it had been foreshadowed, overwhelmed her. "What is the—game ?" She tried to speak in a mattor-of-fact voice. From the pocket of his coat Mansfold took an envelope which he opened. "When we came into the hotel just now this regfstered letter was given me." His hands trembled he opened the sheet of paper. "It is typewritten. It is from my daughter. . . or the woman who was my daughter. She can never enter my heart or my house again." He began to read it, but his voice broke: the unsteady fingers crushed the letter. "She tells me she has run away with a man she met on the voyage. She loves him more than—anything else in the world. We are to forget her, to consider she is dead. Of course, she does not say who the man is; I am almost certain it's one of the ship's officers, for she tells me they are going to the East via America, where they will be married. She adds that she is taking precautions so that she wll never be recognised. And she says that originally she had not intended to write, hoping we would believe she had fallen overboard and been swept, away during the violent weather wo experienced between Ireland and Cherbourg. There are other things I need not tell you ; regrets, of course, prayers for forgiveness. Always, she says, she had the wander-lust in her blood; always the fear of civilisation and conventions. . . So be it. She is dead! She no longer exists."

"Yot you ask me to take her place." "Yes. My first idea was to find a substitute (her maid even might have done) until wo could discover Lala's whereabouts and make her return. Now it is too late. Who would believe the story that she had been lost in a storm, 911 board a ship like the Pnndoria, after this lapse of time?" He camo closer, lowering his voice. "And this marriage with Sir Vane Dysart must take place! There are vital reasons, both financial and political, here and in the Argentine. They not only affect mo but they affect Dysart. Unless this marriage takes place the biggest deal I have ever engineered, involving millions of British and American capital, will fall through. Dysart, though at present ho has dono nothing worthy of his name or position, is going into Parliament. Ho has groat influence": with my money behind him that influence will bo overwhelming. I have been assured he will got a seat in the Cabinet of the next Government. England, has always been interested in the Argentine. I intend to mako those interests paramount., to share the wealth and prosperity of my adopted country with that of the ono in which I was born."

Dolores rose and began to vi-ajlk up and down the room. Watching her, Mansfold stirred by contrary emotions. The likeness to his daughter was so strong that a great longing seized him to have her back j a great tenderness for her. But it was a longing for the impossible. And against it he throw into the scales his reputation, his honour, his great wealth (which the "opportunity to double and

treble had been, granted him). He reminded himself he $ras only trustee of the vast interests he controlled. And thero was •something he. feared—the ridicule of the" world. He, the .uncrowned King-of E; the Argentine, had pictured his wife", wfth"' Dysart's influence, one day being leader of London society. Watching Dolores i lie wondered, too, what was in her mind.- Ho wondered (ho felt an 'unaccountable fear in his heart) what she haa inherited from her parents, what secret lay' hidden in lier breast. She looked so young, so unprotected. And she was so lovely. So strangely—and at that moment—so terribly like his daughter. He nodded his head. " I am what I am, because of the risks I've taken. No man has achieved fame or fortune without taking risks." v "I expect, that's true." Her eyes, deep and clear as mountain water and as mysterious, looked into his eyes, keen, - fierce as. the eyes of an eagle: "You are also cheating." Ho winced. "Cheating?" The "colour rushed to his cheeks. " Deceiving your friends, tho world, and Sir Vane Dysart—even if I wished it, do you think I could deceive him?" " Wo can decide on that—afterwards. For the rest —necessity knows no law. And I'm not only thinking of myself; As I said, I hold my wealth in trust for others. I've gambled on this marriage, .If I lose, others pay more heavily than I. When Dysart proposed to Lala he frankly told me his position. I know more now than I did then. Ruin faces him." She turned away. There was conjured up before her eyes Dysart's face as she had seen it at the '03 Club. She knew now that some curious sense of recognition had passed between them. On. his part it might only havo been the likeness she bore to Lala. He had attracted her, interested Jicr. in another way, in. .many other ways. A man standing at the cross roads nf lifo waiting for a hand tb be stretched out to direct him on tho right, road. A dreamer, perhaps, who wanted someone beside him to help make real those dreams. . Suddenly ambition filled her breast, warmed the blood in her veins, thrilling her, exalting her. She-knew bettor, than any other girl of. her ago—the age of youth—that life was a great adventure. Hero was a chance to learn; to experience, to live, that could never come again. She looked back on the hand-to-mouth existence she had always led; the heart aches, the hunger, the temptations. And sho looked ahead, and- seeing the heights to which she might climb, grew dizzy with; desire—and fear..- She heard Mansfold's voice as if from a ; ; distance: " Of course would really be my daughter 'because I should adopt you." And she r heard herself say; " That's impossible" "I have proved that nothing is impossible.'* .. . . .'",.. •-■■. " Supposing Sir Vane refuses me, or, marrying me, discovers the truth!" ".Youneed fear neither of those events. Anyway I would make your position secure,,As my adopted daughter I would make the/same settlements on you I was going to make on Lala." He waited a \ moment so that tho significance of ;what he was going to say should not be lost on her. " The amount was a million pounds on her marriage!" " And if the marriago does not take, place? For you must leave it to me to decide whether Sir Vane is to be told the truth before we marry or,not." "You shall receive the • samef allowance my daughter had—two thousand a year. But the marriage will take place." Dolores walked to the open window and leaned out. Across the blue sky was thrown a tracery of white clouds through , - which a round red moon shone. The trees in the Park stood montionless, unreal and fantastic through the smokecoloured haze; and beyond, countless lights "surrounding the Palace*, glared. People moved to. and fro, vague and-un-real too; lovers strolling hand in hand or with encircling arms. A million' pounds! She put her hands up to her breast. Her heart seemed to be galloping. The price of her freedom. Perhaps the price of love ? Was not that, after all the greatest adventure, love? But a miHici pounds? •No;' she could not believe it. It was a dream from which she would awaken and find herself standing, very stiff and a little cold, on the model's throne in Paul Lamotte's studio, earning ten shillings by lending her beauty foV the world's delight. Sho saw. the glare from the ■ lamps of motor cars passing through Piccadilly, the outline of an omnibus. She saw a beggar shuffling along the pavement; the scarlet of a woman's dress and her painted face as she passed beneath a lamp post. She was not dreaming! There was life beneath her; there was the street- and the pavement, the victors and the victims —adventures before which she had ofte,n trembled. She turned from the window, walked j io the. fireplace and resting her hands on the mantelshelf stirred the charred wood with the toe of her shoe. She remembered how she had pinched and scraped in-order to buy those shoes. "If I accept, if I agree to< your pro- l posal, how..do you, suggest I should com- \ mence?",~- * t % ' '] Instantly, a change came over Mans-' ; fold. He poured himself out a liqueur, tossed - it off quickly, and unfolded his \ plans. He had thought out everything, no detail, had escaped him. She listened attentively. " And now," she smiled, when, at last, he paused. I . "You arrived this evening! I met you at Waterloo and brought you here. Your mother is following in the morning with the heavy luggage, and will go jj straight to the house in Belgrave Square. At present you are only suffering from the effects of the voyage. I will ring and tell the servant to have a maid prepare your room. Meanwhile, we can slip out, and you can go to your lodgings and pack whatever you may want for'the night. uttla's luggage will arrive to-morrow—she brought naif her trousseau in Buenos Ayres. Everything else you want can be obtained in London. My wife will see \ to that. Your condition in the morning must be worse when you are removed to Belgrave Square. Now lie down on that chesterfield, and I'll ring for,the servant." Dolores did as she was told, listened to tho brief orders Mansfold gave the servant, admiring his tact and decision. As. :, soon as the servant had gone, he went to tho telephone and made a trunk call to Southampton. He told his wife she was j to come by the first train in the morning with the • luggage, and go straight to Belgrave Square, that Lala had reached the Ritz Hotel safely, but was still suffering from the effects of the voyage. He said: " Don't question me now, I'll tell you everything when we,meet. You must be prepared for—difficulties. Reassure Vane." Then he rang off. ■ ' . He took Dolores down by the staircase and they left the btftel by tho main entrance, walked a little way up the street, then took a cab to her lodgings. She packed her suit case, rejoined Mansfold, and together they returned to the hotel. He took her to her room; it was./furnished in the same simple, yet luxurious style j as; the sitting-room. Through the open door sho saw a white-tiled bathroom beyond. He closed the door, and, standing with his back to it, held out his hand. " I know I can trust you, or I should not have asked you io do this thing. I haven't lived among men and fought them all my lifo without being a judge of character. You will not find mo ungrateful. '. You can trust me. From this moment . your past ceases to exist. You are my daughter. Remember that. . . . Break-, fast will, be brought, you in the morning. You in bed until my*wife comes J;or voii." A smile twisted the corners ot his mouth. " Don't forget you're an invalid." . Dolores smiled,-:too. "When I awake .; in tho morning and'.realise what has happened to me, I'm quite surf 1 shah be suffering from a nervous breakdown." Mansfold shook his head. " No, ... |; You-are what I dreamed my child would | be. Tho blood of tho adventurer runs , through your veins: the some kind of blood that runs through mine. ..." Dropping her hand, he left the room ; quickly,-. But .he stood a. little while.ovUside in the passage, one hand covering his face as if to shut out some ghostly vision of tho past which confronted him. (To ho continued daily.)