INTO THE MISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19383, 19 July 1926, Page 14

INTO THE MISTS.

BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM.

CHAPTER XVIH. Dinner on the concluding night of the shooting party at Honcrton Chase was an unsuually festive meal. Rachel had abandoned the effort to sit at the head of her table and remained in her room, and Judith, who took her place, was in one of her most brilliant and daring moods. She wore a gown of geranium-coloured chiffon; her hair shone like black ivory, under a Russian head-dress of wonderful pearls. Her complexion was so clear as to be almost unnatural. Her lips, her eyes, were never quiet for an instant. Prince Ldgar sat on one side, and Frederick Amberleys 011 ihe other, and she flirted with both. She found time, however, to play also the watchful hostess to stimulate conversation in whatever direction it flagged. The only person to whom she did not once speak and from whom indeed, she seemed to keep her attention as far removed as possible, was Paule. "What a hostess Judith will make," the marchioness murmured to Joseph. " I am sure Freddy will be very proud of her-" ' The faint, note of surprise, which so many people used in their amazed appreciation of Judith, was at times almost an irritation to Joseph. " Judith has certainly inherited Uie brains of the family," lie admitted. In appearance her mother was very like her at her age." " I can quite believe it," the marchioness assented —"a very sweet face even now. «I am so sorry that Honerton didn't feel well enough to come down this evening." " My wife is not strong," Joseph confided. " She has had, of course, to bear such a shock as few people in the world have had to face, and it has affected her nerves." " The uncertainty of it all is so terrible. That is the part I could not bear." Joseph addressed the rest of the companv: "I am very glad to inform you that the sport has been very good. Much obliged to vou all for helping to give us a record three days. Middleton assured me that the shooting had never been better—and Middleton is not an easy man to please." " Old Johnson, the trainer, who once shot here," Samuel junior whispered to Joyce Cloughton, " used to say he preferred high birds and low women. " Samuel Fernham," she said, "if you were not a millionaire and unmarried, I should be angry with you. It's terrible what we impecunious young women have to, put up with nowadays in our frantic search for a husband." " Well, I think you girls might keep away from Ciro's at any rate," was Samuel's plaintive protest. " Most amusing place I know," Joyce replied. " It's such fun seeing you poor dears trying to make up your minds whether you ought to be noticed or not." " I'm only anxious'TO please," he anas nounced. " You girls seem to get every- j thing upside-down nowadays. I'm always for taking life as it comes "along." " Samuel's perfectly sweet this evening," Joyce confided to Judith. " I hope I don't get left alone with him in the winter garden or anything like that after dinner. I know I shall fall." "My dear," Judith assured her, "I should" love to have you in the family—even at a cousinly distance, Besides, I, think Sammy ought to settle down. He's too .sickeninigly rich for a bachelor. He needs someone to spend his money on." "It seems inevitable," Joyce sighed. "How should you feel, Mr. Fernham— • or shall I call you ' Sammy '—about debts contracted before marriage V ' " I'd pay 'em willingly." " Come and talk to me after dinner, Sammy," said Joyce. " I might take you on at billiards. I owe so much money at bridge that I am afraid these peopte would look coldly at me if I sat down to 1 play again to-night." " I believe your mother, Freddy, is .trying to catch my eye," said Judith. "Here goes! I'm up!" She rose, naturally enough, at precisely the right moment and floated down the room, perfectly graceful, perfectly beautiful, with a curious air of intense living radiating from her. Paule, the one person ■whom she had ignored during the meal, watched her curiously. His eyes were fixed upon the door some time after it closed. Samuel junior's voice broke in upon a medley of reflections, unusual, in a gense disquieting. " I say, Paule, could I come along and talk to you to-night after the others have gone to bed ?" "What about?—your health again ?" " Don't chaff, there's a good fellow. I want to talk to you from a different angle. It may be very important." " To you, possibly, but not to me, especially if your idea is to knock me up somewhere about two o'clock in the morning." "I won't be a moment later than twelve," th'e young man promised. " You can come if you want to, then," Paule acquiesced, "but if you stay longer than a quarter of an hour, I shall turn you out. As a matter of fact I am going to my room directly after dinner. I have som* important work to do, and Lady Judith has consented to excuse me." " Fancy work after a day in the open air like we've had," Samuel exclaimed. "Why, I should be asleep in ten minutes!" "That is because you have little selfrestraint and less inclination for work of any sort," Paule agreed coolly. "If you'd follow out the programme of life which I could arrange for you. you wouldn't need any drugs." Samuel filled his glass of port. * " I'll take your programme on in the next world," he promised jocosely. The was an enigmatic light for a moment in Paulo's eyes. " One never knows," he murmured. "You may be disposed to try it in this." Samuel presented, himself in the small silting room which was part of the suite alloted to Paule. It was a transformed and glorified Samuel. event had, for the moment, lifted him from the level of his commonplace existence. " Shan't' bother you long to-riight, Paule," ho announced joyously. " Great news! What do ,*-ou think's happened?" Paule shook his head. The young man rattled on. " Joyce has come up to the scratch. Never thought I should have the ghost of a look-in. There are half-a-dozen fellows she could marry to-morrow. What about it, Paule?" " From the little I have seen cf the young ladv you arc very much to be congratulated." "Congratulated? Well, I should say so! Those sort of things don't matter so much nowadays, but, after all, she is the daughter of <1 duke. I expect I'll have to spread myself with the Government a bit. Can't stand ' Mr. and Lady Joyce Fernham.' I couldn't believe my ears or my eyes, Paule, when she suddenly turned serious. . We were playing billiards, when she suddenly stopped—" " Please spare details," Paule begged. *' \ou'rc engaged to be married to a very charming girl, I have congratulated you, it is within a stroke of midnight, and I haven't finished my work." " Can't get rid of me like that, old chap. What an unsociable beggar you are, sitting up here all the evening!" " 1 excused myself to Lady Judith as well as to your uncle," Paule explained. " I have some important work on hand." Samuel threw himself into an easychair. " I'm not going to stay long, but I do want just a word or ,two of advice. I've knocked about a bit—got a bit soft and not taken care of myself as well as I might. That's all very well when a - chap's got nobody else to think about, but it's all changed now. I've got to get rid of this nervousness, Paule, even if I* go into training for it. I'm prepared to do anything reasonable—drink half as much, smoke half as much, and oi course it's all-finished with the little girlies and I that sort of thing. You're the cleverest I Chap I know—better than anv physician I aver went to. Help me to get back into J

(COPYRIGET).

line again, Paulc. I'll never forget it. I promise vou that. You think 1 m a bit of a rotter, I know, because you're a serious-minded sort of chap and I ain t, but I've got a bit of the family obstinacy in me. I can stick to a thing, when I mean to. What I want is something a little stiffer than ' Neurota.' I've got to go and stay with Joyce's people, and the very idea terrifies me. The old chap never moves out of Scotland, wears kilts and fancies himse.'f as a politician, and a religionist. He won't like it, Paule, and he won't like me, but I've got to go through with it." Paule watched his visitor with some interest. • . r " No, he probably won't like you. You may even be a shock to him. ' } "If I'm good enough ior Joyce, he announced, " that's all that counts. After all, there aren't many sons-in-law in this country who could settle half a million upon the woman they're going to marrynot that I've made up my mind to settte as much as that," he went on a little hast-' , ilv. "but I could if I thought it advisable. What I want to know, Paule, is, are you going to help me ?" Pfiule rose to his feet. " Wait,"' he directed. He disappeared the connecting door into his bedroom, and returned in a few minutes shaking a small bottle in his hand. Ho poured the contents into a tumbler and handed it to the young man. " I'm all right now," the latter remarked, eveing it a little dubiously, "full of beans and all that sort of thing, pulse as steady as a rock. Can t I keep this until to-morrow?" " You must drink that now," Paule enjoined. " only one more whisky and soda to-night, and you'd be better if you didn't smoke. To-morrow I'll plan out an altogether new life for you. If you follow my instructions. I may be able to do you some good, but I tell you frankly that I do not preserve the faintest interest in anyone who does not do absolutely as he is told." The young man drank off his draught and stood up. ' " I don't care what you tell me," he declared—" cold baths, breathing exercises—l'll take 'em all. I feel as though I had something to live for now, if you understand me. One gets kind of selfish with no one special in the world to hang on to." Paule moved toward th'e door, and Samuel followed him reluctantly. / " What time are you off in the morning, Paule?" " At nine o'clock or soon after as I can. Close the door, there's a good fellow. Goodnight!" Samuel made his way downstairs, discovered, as he had feared, that Judith and Joyce had retired and went, to his room, where his servant —not expecting him for another hour or two, and having only just left a cheerful bridge party in the housekeeper's room—was engaged in a hurried execution of his belated duties. Samuel took off his coat and slipped on a smoking jacket. » " I'll look after myself, Jenkins, tonight. Is Martin still up?" " He was up a few moments ago, sir." " Give him my compliments, and ask him to let you have a few bottles of wine downstairs," Samuel enjoined. " I'll make it all right with his lordship to-morrow morning. You can drink my health and the health of Lady Joyce Cloughton." " I'm sure I wish you every happiness, sir," the man declared, reflecting with satisfaction that a settled establishment was a great deal better than bachelor quarters. . " I'll hurry down before Mr. Martin retires. Sure there's nothing more I call do for you, sir ? The whisky and soda and some ice are on the side table." "Nothing else, thanks, except to make yourself scarce. I shall probably turn in almost at cnce. lam quite sleepy." The man withdrew and Samuel helped himself to a whisky and soda and yawned. He was really very sleepy indeed. Almost automatically he commenced to undress.

CHAPTER XIX. Paule was finishing his breakfast on the following morning when Amberleys entered the dining room hurriedly. There was a look of trouble on his good-humoured face. " Have you heard what's happened, Sir Lawrence?" "I haven't seen a soul this morning." "They can't find young Samuel!" " Can't find him ? I thought the trouble 'generally was to get him out of bed before ten o'clock." " His bed hasn't been slept in/' Amberleys went on. " His evening clothes are lying all over the place, and Ms servant thinks, from things that are missing, that he must have changed into a lounge suit. At any rate, he's not in his room and not a soul seems to have seen anything of him." Paule walked to/the sideboard and helped himself to another cup of tea. " He came to my rooni last night and talked aibout starting to lead a new life," he observed. " I expect he's gone out for an early-morning walk and breathing exercises in the Park. Better have'some breakfast. He'll turn up." From what 1" knew of his habits, I cannot conceive a more unlikely person to start out for a tramp before breakfast on a wet morning. However, it's no use meeting trouble half-way. I shouldn't think anything of it, except for the extraordinary episode of young Ernest's disappearance from this same house. Judith takes it pretty seriously. She rushed off—to the garage, I think." . " The garage ?" Paule repeated. " Surely she could have telephoned to find out whether the young man had taken his car or not?" " As a matter of fact, I happen to know that he has not," Amberleys remarked. " I telephoned down myself directly I was sure that he wasn't in his rooms, and his car is there and his chauffeur with orders to be ready at eleven o'clock. That was about Fernham's idea of a suitable time'to commence the day." Lady Judith is very intelligent. She probably has a theory of her own." " She's over-intelligent," Amberleys agreed. " All nerves and brain and that sort of thing. Ernest was rather a cub, but she was genuinely fond of'him, and if this young man has really hopped it, too, it is getting ,a bit thick, isn't it. Do you mind passing me Ute butter?" Joseph made a somewhat abrupt appearance in the dining room. He was seriously disturbed. " Samuel's gone! Not a sign of him anywhere! Left the house and no one can tell whether it was last night or this morning. There's one thing wc do not know this time, though. He left deliberately—even changed his clothes before he went." " I've just been telling Lord Amberleys here that he came to see me last night," Paule observed, " and that I gave him a talking to about his healtn and his manner of living. He has probably gone for an early morning walk." " If he's done anything of that sort without leaving a message," Joseph declared viciously, " I'll wring the breath out of his body." . " I trust that Lady Honerton is not alarmed," Paule ventured. " Her attitude is amazing," Joseph acknowledged, standing before the sideboard, bis natural greediness struggling with a sense of incongruity as he studied his favourite dish of kidneys and bacon. " She takes the. matter very seriously, but she showed not the slightest surprise. Well, 1 suppose one must carry on." he added vaguely, lifting a spoon'and fork. " The lad may be all right." " Is there anything further I can do. sir?" Amberleys inquired, rising, and pushing his chair back. " Would you like me to motor over to Norwich and see the chief constable?" " " We telephoned there an hour ago," Joseph replied. " Telephoned up to Scotland Yard, too. I don't think there is anything that you can do, Amberleys. All the outdoor servants are spreading, themselves over the place on bicycles. You might look after Judith for a bit., perhaps. These shocks are bad enough for us men, but they're the devil for highly-strung women." (To be continued daily.)