Selina's Love Story.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8241, 20 September 1906, Page 2

Selina's Love Story.

By Efiie Adelaide Rowlands. Author of "An Inherited Feud," " Brave Barbara," " A Splendid Heart," " Temptation of Mary Barr," " The Interloper," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXlll.—Continued,

The morning's pest brought her the usual budget ol invitations, and among them was one from Delaval. 'lhey had planned a day on the river with some sympathetic companions, and Delaval wrote to ask her if she would fix her own day, only adding that he hoped she would make it an early one. 'Because,* be wrote, 'it is not at all unlikely that I may have to rush abroad Rt a minute's notice.' Dorothy put down this note, and her face flushed. She quickly determined that he should not leave England, at least not jnst yet. 'I want him,' she said to herself, and her heart thrilled in a way that was new to it. Shutting her eyes, she drifted fcpek in her imagination to the right before, *vhau lio h»d *at so close to her in the theatre. It was Btrange she had never noticed what beautiful eyes be had; strange, too, that she had not remarked how superior ho was, hO* SWereufc from all other men she had met. It gave her ft fiensatk.n of exquisite pleasure to realize that this man had mßde a claim upon her, as it were; that the friendship he had giveu her when she was a ohild constituted a bond between them. 'Give him up?' she said to herself, and she laughed. 'George will find that he has made a mistake in this diraotion. Of course, be cannot be expected to understand a man like Delaval. The only men he knoas and under stands are those dull old fogies that he had at the Gate House, and, of course, dear Selina'—Dorothy's lip curls-'has no place among her friends for a man whose name is not in the peerage.' She ordered her maid to bring her a writing pad, and she scribbled a reply to Delaval's uote. 'We must meet and discuss this river excursion,' she wrote. 'I would ask you to lunch here to-day, but 1 am going to he quite frank with you. Somebody evidently has been making mischief about you; at any | rate George spoke to me last night about my friendship with yon, from i which it appears he does not approve I of it.' Here Dorothy put a number j of notes of exclamation. 'However, J that is not going to trouble me very j muob,' she scribbled on, 'and I should not have told you about this at all; only you are really the oldest friend 1 possess now. 1 wish you would send me word, and let me know when you could seo me to-day, and where you suggest would be a good place to meet.' She gave orders that this note was to bo sent by a special messenger, and she laughed to herself, a little softly when this Had been dispatohed. The little suggestion of intrigue gratified her.

Delaval hud been up some tirao when be received that little letter. He was staying at a hotel, as the Italian woman had told Michael the night before, but he changed his hotel very frequently. His face was very dark at first, aa he realised that the objection which he had felt from the beginning George Durnstone mast have for him had already taken definite form. He had expected to have some letters from tielina, and as the mail brought him nothing he Knew that the girl was being inflaenced, if not directly, none the less surely, by her brother. This thought was quite sufficient to put a bitter and passionate in tention in Delaval's mind to punish George Durnstone. •And he thinks to stand between as!' he said to himself, with a laugh, in which arrogance and strength were mingled. He could not, of oonrse, be sure how far Selina had confided in her brother. Tbia leter from Dorothy, however, seemed to point to the faot thai Sir George had some good reason working in his mind, otherwise he never would have moved so Quickly in an antagonistic faßhion. This message from Dorothy was not merely a sop to his vanity, but was vary satisfactory for other reasons. After be had parted from her the night before he bad seen in her his one and ouly means of meeting the financial difficulty of ,the moment. He had quickly assured himself that it would bo an easy matter to manipulate her, and these few wcrds form her snowed him how right he had been. He answered her note with a decided sense of malicious pleasure. *1 do not think we can do better that meet in the park,' he «vrote. 'You can manage, I suppose, to drive a'one this afternoon? Stop your carriage where you usually stand, and get out. You remember where we sat last Sunday? It is far better we should be one of the crowd —not apart. If you saunter toward the settees you will see me. We can then sit and talk as quietly as if we were miles in the country. To such an adept in the art of managing women, Delaval knew well the value of this caution. It would be just the very thing needed to drive Dorothy to foolishness. When a woman is inclined to be very careful it is always the man who would push her to any length; when, on the other hand, it is the woman who is careless and indifferent—though at the same time ignorant or innocent of danger—it is the man's turn to bold the power. Dorothy was jußt one of those natures who would rush wildly to grasp the thing of the moment without any consideration of what lay beyond. Apart from every other uonsideratioo, however, Delaval has .hie own scheme with Seliaa to ad-

vance, and could not afford to let Dorothy jeapordise it in any way. He could always make things right with Selina if by chance she heard that he was attentive with her brother's wife. So it was that, instead of making some mysterious assignation, which would have been an excitement and a! delight to .Lady Durnstone, he put the matter in a natural setting, and fell simply in acoord with her wishes. Dorothy breakfasted in her cwn room, and his letter was brought to her as stie was lounging about. Her husband had been to see her directly >on returning from seeing Selina in the park. George Durnstone was much upset by what Michael had said to him, It was a new thing for this man to be beset by emotion of any sort. He bad drifted all through his life up to the time he hai met Dorothy, taking everything in an even taenion, | indifferent, or contemptuous to those complex feelings which have place in the lives of moat people. Sellna's devotion had been part and parcel of bis 6v6ryday life. He had never stopped to rbalise how unusual this love was, and how beautiful. He had accepted it as he accepted the day when it dawned, and the night when it came to close the day. Then love had come, and he man had awakened, as it were, from a long dream, and when pain and doubt ana even sadness had fallen so quickly on tho heels of love, George Durnstone had beoome conscious at last that life had a deeper meaning than he had ever dreamed was poseible in the past. He bad parted with Michael reluctantly. The knowledge that Selina was loved by this man gave George Durnstone a pleasure so great that he hardly knew how to measure it. fie could uot bring himself to belibve that what Michael had said about Selina could be ttbe truth. Why, he argued to himself, Selina had scarcely known at. John Delaval. True, he remembered that she had given him a kind of sohoolgirl worship, but that was of no account. He had quickly refuted the fact Michael put forward. 'My dear fellow,' he had said, 'I am convinoed you are utterly wrong. At least,' he added, earnestly, 'I hope to God you are. I don't tbink I have thought very much about Selina's fpture one way or the other; a3 J said to yoa just now, I am afraid 1 have been very selfish where she is concerned, but I]bave awakened at last, and I am going to look after her a little tit better in future. Oh! 1 am sure you are wrong,' Sir Georgo added, just as they parted. Michael said nothing, but let him go; but he left the park in a far less troubled mood that he bad entered it. Merely the sight of Selina would have been enough to stir his heart, but their meeting this morning had bad something of the old, sweot familiarity and understanding about it. She had undoubtedly been glad to see him. He, knew her so well. She had not a grain of bypuorisy in her, and if she bad not been pleased her manner would have shown this, but ber eye had smiled at him when they had sat together, and her voice had had the eld pretty sharpness in it that he knew and love-1 so well. All these were small things, but they,were sufficient to put a kind of joy in Michael's heart. And then Sir George's words had been very flattering to him. 'Wonders will never cease,' Michael said to himself, as he made his way back to his breakfast. 'Who would bave thought that George would have cared for me so much?' But a shadow fell oa his faoe as be recalled the memory of Delaval, and began to wonder what would haupen where Selina was concerned. For himself he had resolved to let one other day go by, to have another meeting with that old Italian woman before approaching Delaval. The position had become sven more delicate and difficult than it had been. The close association with Selina held Michael baok, and yet, to the other hand, it urged him even more than the memory of his dead brother to go forward with his prosecution and learn the truth about this man. (To be Continued.)