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Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 180, 20 October 1927, Page 16

Sir

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM.

CHAPTER XX.—(Continued). “My dear man,” Louise exclaimed, -if you could have kept him half an hour longer you’d have earned our undying gratitude! You see, there are several little things on which we shall never agree, he and myself and the rest of the company; so we decided to run over certain passages in the way we intend to do them, without him. Of course, he saw through it all when he arrived, tore up his manuscript on the stage, and generally behaved like a madman.” “I am sorry,” John said, as they took their seats and he handed Louise the menu of the dinner he had ordered. Won’t the play be produced to-morrow night, then?” “Oh. it will be produced all right,” Louise told him; “but you don’t know how we’ve all worn ourselves out, trying to make that old bear see reason. We’ve had to give way on one scene, as it is. What a delightful little dinner, John! You’re spoiling us. You know how I love that big white asparagus. And strawberries, too! Well, I think we’ve earned it anyhow, Sophy!” “You have,” the latter declared. “You were the only one who could soothe Graillot at all.” “I can get my way with most people,” Louise remarked languidly; “but it simply means that the more difficult they are, the more you have to spend yourself in getting it. John,” she went on, after a moment’s pause, “you are coming to-morrow night, I suppose?” “Of course. Didn’t I take my box two months ago?” And now that my part after the first act has been cut out, I am coming with him,” Sophy put in. I may mayn’t 1?”

“Of course.” John assented. Louise sighed dejectedly. “I am not at all sure that I shall like having you there,” she said. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it made me nervous.” He laughed incredulously. “It’s all very well,” she went on, watching the champagne poured into her glass, “but you won’t like the play, you know.” “Perhaps I sha’n’t understand it altogether ” John agreed. “It’s very subtle, and, as you know, I don’t find problem plays of that sort particularly attractive; but with you in it, you can’t imagine that I sha’n’t find it interesting!” “We were talking about it. coming up in the taxi,” Louise continued, “and wo came to the conclusion that you’d hat** it. We’ve had to give way to Graillot with regard to the last act. Of course, there is really nothing in it, but I don’t know Just what you will say.” "Well, you needn’t bo afraid that I shall rflund up in my box and order the performance to cease,” John assured Jhtin smiling. “Besides, 1 am not uuito such **ii idiot. Louise. I know k

do things on the stage which in private life would offend your taste and your sense of dignity. I am quite reconciled to that. I am prepared to accept everything you do and everything you say. There! I can’t say more than that, can I?” Louise smiled at him almost gratefully. She drew her hand over his, caressingly. “You are a dear!” she declared. “You’ve really made me feel much more comfortable. Now please tell me what you have been doing all day.” “Well, Graillot came in and spent most of the afternoon,” John answered. Since then, Lady Hilda Mulloch has been here.”

Louise looked up quickly. “What, here in your rooms?” “I didn’t ask her,” John said. “I have been to see her once or twice, and she has been very nice, but I never dreamed of her coming here.” 4 Shameless hussy!” Sophy exclaimed, as she set down her wineglass. “Didn’t you tell her that Louise and I are the only two women in London who have the entree to your rooms?” “I am afraid it didn’t occur to me to tell her that,” John confessed, smiling. “All the same I was surprised to see her. It was just a whim, I think.” “She is a clever woman,” Louise sighed. “She won’t know me—l can’t imagine why. She is a cousin of the prince, too, you know.” “She is very amusing,” Jojin agreed. “I have met some interesting people at her house, too. She has asked me down to Bourne End for this next week-end —the week-end you are spending with Mrs. Faraday,” he continued. glancing toward Louise. Louise nodded. She looked at John critically. “Quite a success in town, isn’t he?” she remarked to Sophy. “People tumble over one another to get invitations for her week-end parties in the season. I must say I never heard of going down to Bourne End in February, though.” “The idea seemed rather pleasant to me,” John confessed. “So many of you people know nothing of the country except just in the summer.” “She’ll expect you to flirt with her,” Sophy insisted. “She won’t,” John replied. “I have told her that I am in love with Louise.” “Was there ever such a man in the world?” Louise exclaimed. “Tell me, what did Lady Hilda say to that?” “Not much,” he answered. “She suggested that her cousin had a prior claim on you.” Louise laid down her knife and fork. Her left hand clutched the piece of toast which was lying by her side. She began to crumble it up into small pieces. • “What did Lady Hilda say exactly?” she insisted. “Nothing much,” John replied. “She seemed surprised when I mentioned

your name. I asked her why, and she told me, or rather she hinted, that you , and the prince are very great friends.” ; “Anything more?” “Nothing at all. I pointed out that the prince is interested in theatrical affairs and that he is the chief member of the syndicate that runs the theatres. She seemed to understand.” There was a brief silence. Louise , was once more looking a little tired. ] She changed the subject abruptly and , only returned to it when John was driving home with her. “Do you know,” she said, after a long silence, “I am not at all sure that I .want you to go to Lady Hilda’s!” t “Then I won’t,” he promised with ; alacrity. “I’ll do just as you say.” ( Louise sat quite still, thinking, look- , ing through the rain-splashed windows ; of the taxi-cab. “You have only to say the word,” John continued. “I should be flattered to think that you cared.” “It isn’t that. Lady Hilda is very , clever and she is used to having her own way. I am afraid.” “I don’t quite understand you,” John confessed; “but if you mean that you are afraid of anything Lady Hilda might say to me about you—why, I feel inclined to laugh at you. Lady Hilda,” he added, with a touch of intuition, “is far too clever a woman to make such a mistake.” “I believe you are right,” Louise agreed. “I shall pin my faith to Lady Hilda’s cleverness and to your—fidelity. Go and spend your -week-end there, by all means. I only wish I wasn’t bound to go to the Faradays’, but that can’t possibly be helped. Come and lunch with me on Monday,” she added impulsively. “It seems a long time since we had a little talk together.” He suddenly held her to him, and she met his lips unresistingly. It was the first time he had even attempted anything of the sort for months. “You are a dear, John!” she said, a little wistfully. “I am terribly divided in my thoughts about you. Just now I feel that I have only one wish —that I could give you all that you want, all that you deserve.” He was very lover-like. She was once more a slight, quivering thing in his arms. “Why need we wait any longer?” he begged. “If we told everyone to-night -to-morrow —the Faradays would not expect you to keep your engagement.” She shook herself free from him, but her smile was almost a compensation. The taxi-cab had stopped opposite her door, and her servant came hurrying out. “Until Monday!” she murmured. CHAPTER XXI. Early on the following morning John glided out of London in his two-seater racing car, on his way to Bourne End. The white mist that hung over the streets and parks and obscured the sky passed away as he left the suburbs behind him. With his first glimpse of the country came a welcome change. There were little flecks of blue in the firmament above him, a distinct if somewhat watery sunshine, and a soft buoyancy in the air, almost an anticipation of spring. John leaned back in his seat, filled with an unexpected sense of contentment. After all, this week-end visit would probably turn out to be pleasant enough, and on Monday night the play was to be produced at last. He felt that for weeks Louise had been living in an atmosphere of high tension. He himself had begun to realise the nervous excitement of a first night, when the work of many months is at last presented in its concrete form. He was content to believe that all that had depressed him in Louise’s demeanour had been due to this cause—to anxiety about her success, to the artistic dissatisfaction evolved by the struggle between her desire to conform to the prejudices of the critics and her wish

to present truthfully the work of the great French dramatist. Once it was all over and the verdict given, relaxation would come. He was content to wait. He had no trouble in finding Lady Hilda’s cottage in Bourne End —a long, white bungalow-looking building, surrounded by a little stream which led down to the river. A man servant took his dressing-case from the back of the car and showed him the way to the garage. Lady Hilda herself came strolling up the lawn and waved her hand. “Now what about my week-end on the river?” she exclaimed, as they shook hands. “Isn’t it delightful? I have ordered lunch early—do you mind? — and I thought, if you felt energetic, it’s not too cold for you to take me out on the river; or, if you feel lazy, I’ll take you.” “I am not much of an oarsman.” John told her, “but I certainly won’t ask you to pull me about!” She led him into the little diningroom and answered the question in his eyes when he saw the table laid for two. “Colonel and Mrs. Dauncey are coming down this afternoon,” she said, “and my brother Fred will be here in time for dinner. I wired to Mrs. Henderson —the woman who writes novels, you know, to come down, too, if she can, but I haven’t heard from her. I have been looking at the river this morning, and it’s almost like glass; and I can see little specks of green in the flower-beds where my bulbs are coming up. Richards will show you your room now, if you like, and we’ll have lunch in ten minutes.” John found his cottage bedroom, with its view of the river, delightful, and at luncheon Lady Hilda showed him the side of herself that he liked best. She talked of her travels, and of biggame shooting. Afterw r ard they sauntered out to the stream, and John, selecting the more stable of the two boats moored to the little landingstage, pulled out into the river. Lady Hilda, in a fur coat, leaned back on a pile of cushions, and watched him, -with

a cigarette between her lips. He found the exercise stimulating and delightful. Some of the colour which he had lost came back to his cheeks. “Aren’t you sorry?” she asked him once, as they paused to look across a vista of green meadows toward a distant range of hills, “for the people who see nothing in the country except in summer? Look at those lines of bare, sad trees,, the stillness of it all, and yet the softness; and think what it will soon be, think what there is underneath, ready to burst into life as the weeks go on! I always come down here early, just to watch the coming of springtime. That wood to our left, with its bare, brown undergrowth, will soon show little flushes of pinky-yel-low, and then a few days’ more sunshine and the primroses will be there. And you see, higher up, that wood where the trees stand so far apart? A little later still, the wild hyacinths will be like a blue carpet there. In the garden -we begin with little rings of white snowdrops; then the crocuses come up in lines, yellow and purple; and the daffodils; and then, on those beds behind, the hyacinths. When the wind blows from the south, the perfume of them, as you pass down the river, is simply wonderful- Be careful, if you are turning round. There’s a strong current here.” John nodded. He was watching his hostess a little curiously. “I had no idea,” he said, simply, “that you cared about flowers and that sort of thing.” She threw her cigarette away and looked at him for a moment without speaking. “You see, you don’t really understand me very well,” she remarked. The twilight was coming on as they turned into their own little stream, ana gleams of light shot from the windows of the few houses that were open- As they strolled up the lawn, they could see a rose-shaded lamp and a silver teaequipage set out in Lady Hilda’s sit-ting-room.

marked carelessly, as they entered the cottage. “I’ll play you a game of billiards as soon as we have had tea.” John, who had thoroughly enjoyed his exercise, sat in a low chair by her side, drank innumerable small cups of tea, and ate buttered toast in thin strips. When they had finished, Lady Hilda rose. “Go and knock the balls about for a few minutes,” she begged. “I am going to put on a more comfortable gown. If the Daunceys come, you can entertain them. I played a round of golf this morning before you came.” John made his way into the comfortable billiard-room, at one end of which a wood fire was burning, lit a • cigarette, and took a cue. Presently * Lady Hilda returned. She was wear- i ing a rose-coloured tea-gown, and once < more John caught a glimpse of something in her eyes, as she looked at him, * which puzzled him. They played two games, and John had hard "work to escape defeat. As they were commencing the third, the ; butler entered the room, bearing a telegram. Lady Hilda took it from the salver, glanced at it, and threw it into the fire. “What a nuisance!” she exclaimed. “The Daunceys can’t come.” John, who was enjoying himself very much, murmured only a word or two of polite regret. He had never got over his distaste for meeting strangers. “Can’t be helped, I suppose,” Lady Hilda remarked. “There is nothing from Flo Henderson yet. We’ll have one more game, and then I’ll ring her up.” They played another game of billiards, and sat by the fire for a little while. The silence outside, and the air of repose about the place, were delightful to John, after several months of London. “I wonder you ever leave here,” he said. She laughed softly. “You forget that I am a lone woman. Solitude, as our dear friend wrote in her last novel, is a paradise for two, | but is an irritant for one.” “I have never read any of Mrs. Hen- I derson’s books.” he remarked. She stretched out an arm, took a volume from the swinging table by her side, and threw it across to him. “You can glance through that while you dress,” she said. A gong rang through the house a few moments later, and the butler brought in two cocktails on a little silver tray. “We are having quite a solitude a deux, aren’t we?” Lady Hilda remarked, as she raised her glass. “I’ll go and ring up Flo on my way up- j stairs.” They parted a few minutes later, and John went up to his room. He found his clothes carefully laid out, a bright fire burning, and a bathroom leading from his bedroom. He dressed in somewhat leisurely fashion, and the dinnergong rang as he descended the stairs. He could hear Lady Hilda’s voice talking on the telephone, and made his way to her little room. She had just laid down the receiver. “It seems,” she said, “that you and I are the only people who appreciate the country at this time of the year. I have just been talking to Flo. ~ She declares that nothing in the world would tempt her down here. She is convinced that all the trees are dropping with damp, and that the mud is inches deep. She won’t believe a single word ; about the sunshine.” : “She isn’t coming, then?” Lady Hilda shook her head. “Fred is our last hope as a chaperon.” | she remarked carelessly, as she took his ! arm. “I expect he'll turn up later.” (To be continued.)