Fine Feathers.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18787, 17 June 1929, Page 16

Fine Feathers.

“ STAR’S ” NEW SERIAL.

By

EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS

Author of *' A Bunch of Blue Ribbons,” " The Man From the West,” “ Brave Love,” etc.

CHAPTER XX.—(Continued). At this Antoinette Minster made a grimace. “I guess I know a little bit more about my grandmother than you do. No, she is not fond of me. My own impression is that she was never very fond of my mother, and she certainly loathed and detested my father. All her love was centred in your father; that’s the type of woman she is! And what’s the matter with this place?” queried Tony. “It isn’t a palace, but it’s not at all uncomfortable. I’m all right, Bryan, don’t you fret about me.” Bryan got up and walked about a little, and then he said: . “Well you see, my dear, I do fret about you! I’ll be frank with you, Tony, I have a kind of an idea that my appearing on the scene was one of the causes why you felt that you ought to take yourself out of your grandmother’s hands. It would only be natural if you did resent the fuss she made about me I told her myself I thoroughly sympathised with you. I told her that she could not expect a girl of your character, and your spirit, to go on living in such an atmosphere as prevails at Brecklejc” Tony’s face lit up. “No!” she said, “you don’t mean to say that. My word, you are a brave man, Bryan! It’s what I have been trying to say all these years, and in fact I have made one or two attempts at it, but coming from you it would be a very different thing. And it is so true,” the girl added, and she sighed rather heavily. “I couldn’t have remained on there. I don’t know that I’m going to be a conspicuous success as an independent person, but at any rate I feel that, as I am, I can at least breathe freely, and I need not study the whims and wishes of a very tyrannical person.” “You’re, not looking well, Tony,” said Bryan. “Are you getting enough to eat? Do you get enough fresh air? Look here, Tony, you know honestly you must leave this place.” The girl shook her head. “No, I can’t. I want to stick on. I am not going to confess I am beaten so quickly. But if you like to lend me a car now and again, I’ll be very much obliged. I cannot get the run of the ’buses, and taxis take up all my small money.” Then she put out her hand protestingly—“No, no, Bryan. I know perfectly well what you have in your mind. If I want any money and I get into an awful hole, I give you my word of honour I’ll turn to you. Will that satisfy you?” “Not quite,” said Bryan. “I want to go into your affairs a little further. What money have you? And what have you done with your pearls, and all your odd-s and ends c" jewellery? Look here, Tony, I cannot stand for this! You must see it’s a preposterous position. Let me get your jewellery for you, at any rate.” But even to this Tony would not agree, and she spoke with so much authority that he had to submit his will to hers. But after they had talked for a very long time, he insisted upon her putting on her hat and going out to lunch with him. And all the time Bryan was longing to speak to this girl of his love for Mary, and Mary’s love for him. He only hesitated because, in that curiously instinctive way which was perhaps a legacy from the peculiar circumstances of his early life, the fact was brought home to him that Antoinette was very unhappy, unhappy, too, about the man for whom he now had the most profound contempt and dislike.

But the name of Lionel Crafter was not spoken between them. In fact, Bryan was particularly careful to avoid all mention of the other man. They went to lunch at a little restaurant in Soho. Tony declared that she did not want to go to any well-known place where she would be likely to see people who knew her, because, as she explained, she would have to answer so many questions, and she- was not prepared with the proper replies. “When I have done something,” she said, “when I have got an engagement, however small, then I shan’t mind so much, because I shall be able to say I am going to appear in such and such a piece. But you know, my dear Bryan, it is so easy to say you will go on the stage, and so jolly difficult to do it! I have chosen a charming name,” she added with a laugh. “I am going to call myself Miss Gaybird: that will be so pleasant to grandmother when she hears it!” That first luncheon and visit to Tony's lodgings was followed by a reat many other meetings. Every day Bryan sent a little letter to the old house in Chelsea, and gave Mary a full account of all that was passing with him. He spoke freely about Antoinette, and he even suggested that Mary might be able to give his cousin some really good advice. “You are so wise, beloved,” he wrote on one occasion, “and you have gone through so much hardship, and you know what real work is. Poor little Tony! She is playing at it, and I think her courage is failing, just as I know perfectly well her heart is breaking. I must not say more about this because, after all, she has not confided in me, and it is not right to rush to conclusions, but 1 honestly confess, my dear, I am really distressed about her, and if only our grandmother were of a different type of character, I would insist on Antoinette going back to Breckley as quickly as possible. But now that is quite out of the question.” When no answers came to these letters (he had only had one scribbled line from Mary after their meeting on the Embankment) Bryan’s anger rose and his anxiety deepened. At last he summed up courage to tell Tony all that was passing in his life. And he little knew how the girl’s heart leaped, and how her spirit rose, when she heard him speak of his love for Mary Pagent and Mary’s love for himself. At least this disposed of the rumour which Basil Gospard had given her with regard to Lionel Crafter! At the same time, with her. shrewdness and her precocious worldliness, Tony jumped to the conclusion that the rumour was not without some foundation.

And suddenly she determined to get into contact with young Crafter and have the whole matter thrashed out.

Hence the little note that she wrote which she took herself and left at the i ; door of Lionel Crafter’s rooms, being | ■ driven there in the car which her j , cousin Bryan had placed unreservedly i ‘ at her disposal. (To be continued.)