CHAPTER II

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9303, 1 August 1908, Page 1

CHAPTER II

WAHTUKD,

Mr Petherby could not fail to observe Lord Broadstone's confusion. "Anything serious occurred?" he asked. .

"Only an investment going wrong," was the reply ? given with obvious striving after indifference. "Because Dorrison's an M.P. he's always ' interfering." ''Cast-iron John" pulled at his goatee slowly. " He's the heir of course, and can't bo expected to like this marriage." "It isn't about that," protested Broadstone, " nothing at all to do with it," he repeated eagerly. "I have met Gilbert Dorrison twice, I think. I don't know whether you see much of him ; but if you do, be on your guard; I put him in the class labelled ' dangerous.' " " He is one of the best of fellows." "Is he?" was Mr Petherby's dry rejoinder as he drew the younger man into one of the conservatories. " Does he know anything about you that affects your marriage?" Lord Broadstone wriggled uneasily under the piercing eyes. "Certainly not, Mr Petherby, of course not. There is nothing to know." "Sure?" Like a surgeon's probe came the one-syllable question. " Qn my honour." " Very well " ; and with that they went on to the drawing-room. Eva and her brother were sitting together in one corner while a decayed relative of her mother's, the Hon Mrs Pettifer, who received an " honorarium" for her chaperoning presence in the Manor, was reading by the piano. The brother and sister started nervously when their father entered, and Jack rose. Both brother and sister were in looks and disposition like their dead mother-— -a gentle, well-born soul who had married the rich man at the bidding of her relatives and had been glad to die soon after Jack's birth. . • Lord Broadstone, anxious to avoid Mr Petherby until feeling less ill at ease, sauntered over to Eva. She made a place for him on the sofa, glancing first to see if her father was watching, and then shrank as far into the corner as possible. She was strikingly pretty. An oval. f ace — the features thin and regular and beautifully moulded, »nd the complexion as clear- as alabaster — was crowned by a wealth of golden hair under which, in strange contrast to the rest of her colouring, were a pair of deep-fringed eyes, dark and large and wondering and full of the soft questioning timidity of a roe. Every look of her eyes, every word she spoke, every gesture she made seemed to be inspired by the same shrinking timidity. All painfully eloquent of her intense fear of her stern iron-handed father. "We have been a long time, I fear, Eva," said Lord Broadstone. "It has not seemed long to me — I mean Jack was telling me things." She corrected herself nervously. "It seemed long to me — away from you," he replied with an obviously insincere smile. But she did not notice the insincerity.. "I am glad, my lord — Bertram,