“Miranda Repents,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 31 July 1936, Page 7

“Miranda Repents,”

CHAPTER X. —A MARRIAGE DISARRANGED. Miranda hoped she looked important. She was doing her best, although it is rather difficult to look dignified when you are five-foot-nothing, have a retrousse nose, and are on the biink o a great and joyous adventure. . Seated opposite to her father m the boat-train, she hoped the other people in the carriage were merely going to Southampton to say good-bye to thenfriends, and that they were duly impressed by the fact that she was on no such prosaic mission. She trusted they could see that she was a globetrotter; or, at least, she soon would be. Mr Lane, her father, was a distinguished scholar, but he was not a rich man. Miranda’s life with him had been happy, but not exciting. She had played little mother from her earliest years, ruling him with a loving sternness to which he submitted gladly and grate-. fully. If she was excited at the forthcoming trip for her own sake, she was-equally overjoyed for his. He had but recently retired from active professorial work, and this was the first real holiday he had taken since his youth. Miranda wondered if the holiday would really have been perfect if she and her father had taken it alone, of whether the presence of Mr Elswortliy and his son James, who were to be their travelling companions, might not add some slight entertainment, She had met Mr Elswortliy, but not his son. Her father and Mr Elswortliy had been boyhood friends, inseparables, until malice parted them. Now, after twenty years, during which Mr Elsworthy had made a fortune, they had discovered the truth, and embraced their reconciliation with the keenest joy. It was to make up for their years of separation and in celebration of their renewed friendship that this present trip was supposed to be undertaken. Mr Elswortliy had business in San Francisco, and this was made the excuse for a trip via New York to California. Miranda might have accepted this explanation as adequate, if her father and Mr Elswortliy had been better fitted to play the parts of scheming fathers. As it was, she knew quite well that the main motive of the trip was a delightfully clumsy attempt at match making. She was an only beloved daughter, James Elswortliy an only beloved son. It was no wonder that the two fathers longed to cement their life-long friendship and reunion by a marriage between their children.

“I wonder if this wretched James knows why we are forming this quartette?” soliloquised Miranda. “I expect he does. Father might just as well have told me, too, because lie’s done everything but tell me in words. ’ ’ She smiled at his .transparent plotting, turning her face to the window so that he could not see, which was rather a pity, because her smile was too delightful to be wasted upon the passing scenery.

At first she had greatly resented the matchmaking scheme, not seeing how she could undertake the trip without appearing to fall in with it. Now she refused to worry about it.

“After all, I haven’t promised to marry Janies,” she reflected. “I haven’t been told that I’m expected to do. These clumsy old darlings probably think they’re such clever plotters that I don’t even guess their hopes. It will certainly be unpleasant for this wretched Japes to imagine that I’m just waiting for him to speak the word, but that he’d better leave it unsaid.”

In fact, any resentment Miranda had was visited upon the wretched James, as she called him, though why, she was not quite certain.- Perhaps it was because her mental picture of him was as a lanky pale-faced youth whose only recommendation was filial obedience. “I may even find him amusing,” ■she confessed, though she did not specify in what way; but she had not come in contact with the large numbers of impressionable young men who attended her father’s classes without discovering her own powers in the gentle art of flirtation.

Mr Elswortliy and James had spent the night at Southampton, and would join Miranda arfd her father on board. In the interest of passing from the train to the ship, and of exploring her cabin, she forgot all about James, and was engrossed only in the details of her great adventure. She was rather anxious to see the person with whom she was to share her cabin, and after a glance at the expensive articles which decorated the tiny dressing-table and at the smart clothes hanging in the cupboard, she hoped she would not be a haughty, individual. Whoever she was, she had already arrived and unpacked.

Deciding to leave her unpacking until after they had sailed, she was about to go on a tour of discovery, when her father came to the cabin door with Mr Elswortliy and a girl who was already dressed in the smartest of deck costumes.

“Y.our cabin companion is a relative of Mr Elsworthy’s,” her father said, beaming. “Mr Elsworthy managed to get the cabins changed, as he thought it would be nicer for both of you to travel together.” “The person who was booked in your cabin raised no objection—so nice of her,” murmured Bertha Whitliam, as she and Miranda were introduced and shook hands. They examined each other frankly, and approved. Bertha was decidedly picturesque, with a slim grace which she deliberately made feline, after the fashion of the film “vamp.” She wore a pale golden powder which blended exotically with her warmly-tinted cheeks and carmined lips. Her glossy black, wavy hair and great brown eyes were really beautiful. She decided that Miranda, her junior by a. year or two, was a nice little person who would be easy to get on with, whilst Miranda

BY Y. RUTTLAND,

welcomed Bertha as a pleasanter cabin mate than an utter stranger, and also as a relief from the constant companionship of Janies. “It was quite at the last minute that Bertha decided to come,” explained Mr Elswortliy. “She has, been wanting to go to Hollywood for some time, but her mother naturally couldn’t let her go alone, so she seized the opportunity to come with us.” “I have movie ambitions,” said Bertha, “but am otnerwise quite sensible.” Miranda felt convinced that if Bertha had film ambitions they were strictly sane and commercial, an opinion which further acquaintance with her confirmed.

“James is having to defer the pleasure of meeting you,” said Mr Elsworthy, with a self-consciousness which made Miranda want to smile. “He is in the throes of unpacking. ” “So shall I be as soon as .we’ve sailed,” she replied. They went up on deck together, where they remained until the great ship took her way out to sea. The departure was ,so much tamer than Miranda had! expected, that she was s rry she had not remained jjelqw find fittended to her unpacking, and she hurried down to do it before lunch.

Until they had taken on their last passengers at Cherbourg, permanent tables would not be allotted, but- by going in together the two girls and the two elder men secured a table for their party, reserving a place for James, who had still not made liis appearance. Miranda felt that lunch was not quite a good' time for her first meeting with him. She was considering the difficulty of satisfying her hunger and at the same time impressing Janies with the folly and audacity of supposing that she was ivilling to marry him, when Mr Elswortliy signalled violently to some one who had just entered the diningroom.

Miranda went on steadily with her soup, but out of the corner of her eye she watched a tall figure threading its way between the tables,, a' figure whose breadth of shoulder and assured carriage was not at all in accordance with her picture of the lanky James. “Where did you disappear to?” asked Mr Elswortliy. “We seem to have been playing liide-and-seek.” “So sorry. I didn’t hear the gong. I was on the top deck,” replied a voice which made Miranda jump. It was not at all the voice she had expected from the wretched Janies. It was the voice of a man, and one, it seemed, who was accustomed to giving orders. There was no nervousness in it Miranda had imagined James being nervous of her —and there was no effort at cordiality. On the contrary, he sounded somewhat curt, as if the occasion was not to him the pleasure it was to the others.

Miranda lifted her eyes, and had another shock.

James Elswortliy was a full ten years her senior, and to that advantage lie added a look which made her feel half her usual size. He was looking down at her, and she met the full gaze of his murky greenish eyes, lather cold under their lowered lids. At the time, she grasped no more of the rest of him than that he was distinctly good-look-ing, and she was: impressed by his distinguished air, and surprised and annoyed by the suggestion of superciliousness which she read into his slightly raised brows and the curve of his wellshaped mouth. A wave of bright colour swept over her face as ho was introduced, and his, cool slim hand closed over hers in a brief but masterly clasp that completed her confusion.

For the next two courses, Miranda was oblivious of everything but the burning desire to take herself out and slap herself. Never had she been guilty of such a stupid exhibition. She was sure that oven Bertha was smiling at' her silly blush, and the two elder men must be nudging each other with delight. As for James, her ears burned when she thought of him, and though she kept her eyes steadily on her plate, she had small notion of what she was eating. By the time she recovered, determined to show him that her blush had been purely imaginary, she found that lie was deep in conversation with her father and had apparently forgotten botli her blush and her existence. That made Miranda lift her chin and fix a haughty glance upon him. “I suppose he thinks he doesn’t have to woo me,” she thought. “Ho imagines that has been done for him. Here I am, all dutifully ready to marry him, and all he has to do is graciously to ask me when lie pleases. I think James is going to have a surprise.” He was, if it lay in her power to give him one. She had intended to check from the beginning any advances on his part, but that was; when she knew him only in anticipation. She now felt that it would be no more than he deserved if she allowed him to make Jiis proposal and then gave herself the pleasure of rejecting him. Even when lier annoyance cooled and 4 her restored composure forced her to admit that lie was an immense improvement on wliat she liad expected, she decided that he was a disagreeably superior person. He and Bertha Whitliam were on very friendly terms, and once when he laughed, Miranda was conscious, of an interesting thrill. He certainly liad a delightful laugh, she decided, one that completely transfigured him. (To be Continued).