“A Girl of Grit.”

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 48, Issue 14611, 9 March 1922, Page 7

“A Girl of Grit. ”

Author By FIBTH SCOTT, of “The Biddle of Gordon Square,” “The Bramley Heir,” ‘Kitty Kingston’s Heritage,” etc.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEME

DOMESTIC STORY OF LOVE AND MYSTERY,

(COPY SIGHT.)

CHAPTER AX. —Continued. “And in doing that you have hclped me to eat-ch the astute Teddy at his tricks again,” said Mansfield. “He tv as probably at Farloigh yesterday afternoon. It's my opinion it was lie who inveigled Evelyn Donegal away, though at the time I fancied he was acting with you in the matter. .1 happened to be taking my after-lunch stroll when i caught sight of him driving along a side-lane in a big motor car. lie didn't see- me, ami 1 wondered what he was after until 1 heard Donegal's daughter had vanished. What, was in the telegram?” “It was sent in Colton's name, and asked Teddy to meet him at eleven today for a marriage by special license. Teddy happened to reach my fiat while Donegal was there demanding his daughter and told me afterwards* lie had come because he could not understand what the message meant.” “What a wonderful liar he is!” Mansfield said after a brief pause. “I would like to know what he has done with the girl, though. You’re not going?” he asked, as Lady Molly stood up suddenly. “Yes, I’ve learned all I want to. (Houston is due to call on me and report what has happened some time before noon, and I want to be there, to learn what sort of a tale lie has con e'rueo.l since lust, nigh 4 ” “You had better go and see the Earl before you go. If you had given me time.to send on a full account of what happened last night you would have been edified. Donegal’s turned down allcgefher. You know that, of course.” “1 did not know it,” she answered.

“ Well, he is. The Earl told him to eo tc nameless localities, and he retorted by threatening exposure and all 4 lie rest of it.”

“Did the Earl tell you that?” “If he had I should not have believed him. Oh, no, I don’t get my facts that way. I hoard it all for myself, and barely had time to skip in here ahead of Donegal when he came out of the Earl’s room. When he had gone to catch his train I took the demand for a settlement of Lord Colton's debts vour father had sent down and gave it Do the Earl. That made the itare-up when Colton came in,’’ lie added, with an amused chuckle.. “Go on!” she said impatiently. “Telli ■me what (happened, briefly. 1 must get back to town,” ‘ ‘ The Earl raved at Colton, blamed him for the Doengal fiasco, and ordered him to find a rick woman and marry her at once. Colton was actually emphatic. I never saw him like it before. It "was a perfect reflation. He said —you will be awfully amused, 1 know—b t he declared there was only one woman in the world for him, and lie would marry her or no other. I thought the Earl was going to have a stroke, espec ialiy when Colton added that Evelyn Donegal was the only one. Go if you eould see the Earl now, and ;,eg h;s memory about Colton’s flirtation with you it might assist matters. Othcrwise—well, you know the old boy is capable of anything when he is really reused, and to save himself would throw Colton or anyone else over without a moment’s hesitation.” biie stood silent for a time, frowning and thinking. “No, I will not see him now, nor must he know L have been here,” she said presently. “I will write both to Lord Colton and his father when I am in town later to-day. If, as you suggest, Clouston has taken Evelyn away, then I shall not be surprised if he and Colton are acting together. I must get back before noon, i must be 'there when Ik* calls. It will be amusing to hear his latest invention,” she added with a scornful laugh. Site might have added further that so far there had not been much amusement for her in what she had heard; '■ that, instead, there had come to her a {feel'ng of resentment against Evelyn, which" 3 she was annoyed to realise was I entirely duo to the suspicions Mansfield ! had \oiced that Clouston was concerned with her disappearance. She wanted :to be alone to think the matter out | quieCy. For the moment everything Mansfield said grated her nerves. She was keen-witted enough to understand what all this meant. The secret of her ability to grasp and handle difficult problems effectively lay in the fact that she had accustomed heisetlf always to get at the root of things without any shirking of the truth or hesitation to recognise and cope with whatever threatened to interfere with her aims. She did not shrink from a logical conclusion even when, as in the present instance, such a conclusion led her to recognise her own emotions as the chief danger to her success. The chance phrase of Mansfield had stirred into activity what she had so far omitted to realise existed. She fancied she had the emotional side of her nature completely in hand and subjugated to the demands of her practical ambitions. It gave her something of a shock to feel an unmistakable twinge ot jealousy at the coupling of Evelyn s name with GTouston-'*s. During the run back to town aim sat in her car oblivious to everything save this now menace to her ambitions. She had been perfectly sincere when she told Clouston that to her the posses-

such a terrible mistake with her life, she had schooled herself to suppress everything on the emotional side -of her nature and to regard men merely as of vjjlug to her -u accordance with the facilities they iuuju afford her of gra. 'fviiu her j'..’ tonal aims and de-

It. was under that category she had selected Lord Colton as the most worthy person on whom to concentrate her powers of attraction. Handsome, daring and clever, she had carried her first essay in the matrimonial marked to a successful issue, and effectually smothered, under the high-sounding title of Lady Molyneux, the most plebeian patornymic of Rachel Lawson —the English equivalent of the more racially distinctive one. of Levy. True, her husband was but a broken-down, dissolute younger son, whose relatives ignored her, knowing how the bills and the I.O.U’s held by her money-lending father had been used to convince Lord Henry that it was time lie married and settled down.

She had schemes by means of which she would have compelled the recognition curtly refused to her had she been allowed an opportunity for using them, but with m-ore good fortune for them than his relations realised, Lord Harry nullified all her hopes by coming a fatal cropper off a restive horse soon after his marriage, and left her to enjoy the only thing he had to leave as best she might. It was through that fatality she had met (Houston. He happened to be riding behind Lord Henry and hastened to his assistance, afterwards conveying the intimation to Lady Molly that she was a widow. From that chance association had sprung their friendship, full of possibilities in the early stages, when each one was trying to gain an accurate estimate -of the other’s possessions.

(Houston’s discovery was more satisfactory than hers, and he made a strenuous effort to profit by it, only, however, to learn that lie had -met his match, and more than his maitcli, in the gentle art of evasion. But the friendship had not ceased when each discovered the other to be built on very much the same mental model. She found ample employment for his abilities and a ready-money market for his intimate knowledge of the seamy side of many a family history, benefiting in turn when he revealed to her the possibilities offered by Lord Colton for her aggrandisement and the immense lever his knowledge of the Earl’s first marriage gave. (To be Continued.)

sion of position and power was above and beyond all else. For so many years she bad forced out of her life everythin}' whir'll tended in any way iO in terfere with the purely material and worldly aims she cherished, that she had long since come to regard herself as absolutely immune from the infee lion, or contagion, or whatever it migh be of that disease termed love, one ravages of which she had so often seer destroy utterly the worldly prospects of many a man and many a woman. 11 had always seemed to her to be one o the most pathetic, if nolt pitiable re su'ts of ! lie disease that, while H robbed its victims of the triumphs o. robbe slMs victims of tiro (triumph; H„.y were so well fitted to wear, i rendered them completely oblivious v the- loss they had sustained. Life without ambition, years witliou the salt, of daily and often hourly striv ing to surpass and eclipse a.l rivals, pos siblc and existent, was to her a mer barren, arid waste. To set the bald fac of companionship with one indiyidua against the ever-present fascination o the other was incomprehensible t her. Companionship was always to t> obtained merely for the seeking, am variety in that, as in all else, wa. charming. Monotony, whether in col our, food, or society/ was one of he pet aversions, and marriage based onl; on what the world called love was a: enterprise which was potential of no thing but monotony, from her poin; of view. Lost sho should over fo foolish enough to lapse into nmkuij