Lady Marjorie's Love

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 3 February 1913, Page 2

Lady Marjorie's Love

(OUR SERIAL

j By Carl Swerdna ! Author of "To the Uttermost Farming," "A Merc Ceremony," "A Fight i for Honour," Etc.

I CHAPTKK 111. § | Perhaps it was not to ho wondered * ut Chat so fashionable and fastidious a ! as Mr Bligh should find $ Gaetle Marling dull. The dinner was " unquestionably dull. Marjorie, her > heart with, her father, waa openly out ] of spirits and almost si lent; and a young man who was merely her hus- | nephew, and w'liom she did not (particularly like, was not a young J man to enlist the best conversational efforts of the countess. And Loft us .pre.sen.tfd iiio contrast to the two Indies, for he was plainly cut of spirits, U.o. This was. so apparent that later, when they were together in on? of the window recesses of the great drawing-room, a recess so large that it would have made a respectable room in itself, while the countess absorbed herself in a certain Socialistic magazine whose cover was scarlet and whose doctrines were inflammatory, Marjorie atfsked her lover what was the matter. "The matter?"' Ho had not been looking at her, although' against the straight fall of a heavy purple curtain behind her white frock, her red fan, and her brown head mode a pretty picture, but out across the terrace garden, with a face 1 so clouded and absent 'that it was little wonder that she asked the question, well used as sine was to his being often careless and silent in her company. Now as ;ho looked round and down at her his change of expression was a little too sudden and bright to be genuine, just as his tone was a shade too light and indifferent. "What ■should be the matter?" lie calmly

a start. I "If ymi aro really going back to ' Upton Y\aters to-nignt, you iuid better go ar.tl sec the earl -now, Juidn't you, L.olius:- He isn't at all well, Fenelki says, but I'm sure he wuild nice t-: sti'. you lor a tew -minutes. ! And if* you ctou't go before Mr Peth- ! no-: uii.-s. ho will most likely be too ; tired to see you at all." 1 "1 suppose I had better see h:m, mo! Oi course I mustn't go without seeing him. I'm sorry he's not well. Will you come in now or stay out here Y ' "I'm not cold. I'll stay out here, thanks." 'Upon sensitive ears her voice might have struck as having a cold and .-iharp note in it, but possibly Mr iilig'h'* ' ears were not sensitive, for lio left her with only a carelessly gocd-hu-m----ored gesture* of acquiescence. And Marjorie, for her part, did not stay to watch him disappear. She called to Jack and ran down the' terrace steps. "Mr Petheriok Will be here directly," she said, speaking just as she might have spoken had her companion walked. on two legs instead of trotted, on four, "and I want to stop him if I can. I must tell him 'lio.v out of sorts the earl seems, and that he'd better not talk to him too

long." Sho was in the path along which the lawyer must pass, and she sauntered slowly up and down, waiting for him. It was not long, or sho had barely made half a dozen turns when Jack cocked his ears at the sound of approaching footsteps upon the gravel, and a moment later Mr Pet'lieriek presented himself —a tall, spare, gray-haired man, who had his profession stamped upon every feature 1 of his handsome, sharp face and every inch of his erect, black-clothed figure. A very remunerative practice indeed had Mr Petherick, although it was only a country one —apraetico which would have been comfortable even without the patronage of the earl, for Castle Marling was by no moans the only groat house in the country where he was welcomed as a friend. "Why, Lady Marjorie!" With, a pleased smile breaking the professional gravity of his face, he raised his hat to the small white figure in the path. "Really," he said, "I could almost flatter myself that you were doing me the honor to wait for mel" "Sol was, Mir Petherick," Marjorie put the hand which she had given him within his arm and turned in the path with him. "I was waiting for you 'because I want you to be very good and do something to please me." "Do you, my dear?" The old gentleman had dawdled,. Lord Marliiigford's daughter on his knee before slie could toddle, and he. patted the little hand affectionately. "I'm more honored than ever!" he said. "What are your ladyship's commands?"

asked. "Nothing:.but I thought something might be. You seem dull and out or ■spirits," said tho girl straightforwardly for Loftu-s was generally so amusing when ho chose to exert himself that he must know that' he had failed to exert himself, but hadjieen, on the contrary, downright stupid. "Oh I?" He laughter lazily. "Ah,

that comes of being in everybody'*

visiting book, Marjorie! Why, 1 don't think I've turned in before three in the morning once in as many weeks, t-o iff am a little dull it's small wonder."

"I should think it is not! But you must be very silly to do it!" «he said, with an unflattering frankness which she sometimes used to her lover. "What is the good of going to a, .stu-

pid ball or a stupid dinner when you are dreadfully tired and would rather not? Quite absurd, I call it!" "Do, you, Httlo unsophisticated?" He laughed again, with a good-humor-ed indulgence mixed with the lazy drawl. "Ah, you liavo a good;deal to learn, about society, little lady, in spite of that famous one .season of yours! A follow in the swim 'has to keep in it whether .he likes it or not.'-' | "Perhaps you don't like it?" She. laughed, too, and gave him a shrewd little mocking look. "Oh I don't say Eh at! It suits me. better than too muc-h of Oastle Marling, for instance." He stifled a ya-wn for he was bored as well as dull, ' and glanced over his shoulder at the oouhtess. "It is early yet," he remarked resignedly, "and her ladyship seems quite absorbed over there. What do you say to a stroll?" Ma-rjorie said "yes" to the stroll, and produced a white wrap, which she kept conveniently and surreptiously tucked away under a certain sofa cushion. 'Mr Bligh. put it over her head and shoulders, not without a glance of tolerant approval at the rosy little brown-eyed face that peeped saucily out at Jiim, and they went out totgether, leaving Lady Marlingford h-till absorbed in her explosive-lcokin-g volmiw?.

But conversation, sluggish at the .dinner table and Languishing in fciio drawing-room, did not, as might surely be expected, revivo under the inspiring inuuences of the scented Juno night and the light of the rising moon; on the contrary,' it dwindled and died away altogether.

Lady Marjorie, in, spite of her •isweet temper and her being so entire- ; ly 'used and resigned to her Jove.rV "way" decided, oy the time they had ...' made a second circuit of the terrace garden in solemn silence, that it was "all nonsense" for Loftus to pretend that there was nothing tlie matter. He was as dull as little Mr PeppercJl, the curate, who surely wa:s the dullest of masculine creatures. Ho had been betting, perhaps? Or gam- < bling? All men—London men —bet - and gambled, Marjorie thought—it was a natural and necessary part of their fashionable existence. But, even although Loftus might have been amusing him&elf with either of tlie.se pastimes, or with both, that was no reason Why he should bo silent "and gkim, and walk at her side as though ihtj did not even know that 'he had her hand upon his arm—and the hand that bore her engagement ring, too! For almost the first time since she had worn it she resented this very calm and cool treatment. She stopped suddenly—so suddenly that her hand fell at her Bide, and ho looked at her with