A SECRET FOE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10130, 2 December 1910, Page 2

A SECRET FOE.

OUR SERIALS

ry GERTRUDE WARDEN. Author of "Scoundrel or Saint?" "The Secret of a Letter," -A Bold Deception," "The Wooing of a Fairy," "The Crime ol Monte Carlo," etc.

CHAPTER Ylll. Continued. In the middle of her burning anger a thought suggested itself to hoiIt was' strangely characteristic oi this girl that her subtle Italian brain, except on very rare occasions, 'held her passions in a leash, so that she only 'let them go as far as she deemed expedient to her plots and I nlans. "I win send him a letter by hand, she decided, "and beg him to see me to-day. I can generally get round him, if I can manage to see him." Slipping on her dressing gown, she went to a dainty inlaid writing desk and inscribed the following letter: "My Dear Uncle Jasper: All that you say is only too true. I know that I am extravagant, but it is a little difficult to avoid extravagance in the London season, when I know everybody and nobody knows how poor* I am. And you would not lilfe your neice to be seen in public looking shabby, would you ? Now, do come this very clay and repeat your lecture in person. You will find me s very docile, and very anxious to meet you apart from all this ,as I have not seen you. since your return from America, and am longing to tell you how thankful I am for your escape from the Atlantis. Mama and the children, with Watkins to look after them are going to be driven down to luncheon at Wimbleton by Madame Mavrogodato mere soon after twelve. I know you are not atached to my small step-brother or sister, and that you will be glad of their absence, .lust send me a lino by return, to say whether and at what time you may come and administer a good scolding to "Your ever-affectionate neice, "DAGMAR." J : Ringing for her maid, Miss' Mall- i yon directed that the page-boy should be at once dispatched in a haiisom I with'her J tter to Mallyon Court, an I imposing "red-brick mansion in Kiiightsbridge, which was her uncle's town residence.

Her cunning brain busied itself frith devices to this end until the page-boy' returned in the cab, with Lord Malyon's answer. "I shall be delighted to see you, iny dear neice, the note ran, "and hope to be with you at three o'clock, when I can spare two hours.." Dagmar read the message through twice and reflected. Then she laughed. "Jf it's brought home to me, I must get out of it with the best story I can," she said, and forthwith took a telegram-blank and filled in the address: "Drogo Cordon, Mallyon Court, Knightsbridgo: Come to the Flower Walk, Kensington Gardens, at threethirty to-day. A friend wants much to see you."

'•. wonder how much I shall be able to get out of him?" she pondered, as she went back to her breakfast. 'He must increase my allowance ; I can't live in" this quagmire of debt any longer. And there is a horrid tone about his letter, which seems to remind me that I must hope for very little more help from him , and that he does not recognize any claim that I have upon him. It is disgraceful—with everyone considering me as his heiress—that I shouldn't know where to turn for money. If only Ted " She checked herself. At the very mention pi Fitzalan's, name her expression softened, and a warm blush spread over her throat and face. Throwing herself down on her pillows she covered her face with her hands. "Oh,. I, am a-fool—a fool!" she sighecl," 'to love him as I do! Why can't I marry Sir John Moray, or of these other men who fall in love with me ? I cannot trust Ted, and he is .'always angering me. Yet he has only when we are walking together, to slip one finger within my glove, and I love him to distraction, and would go through the world barefooted fcr his sake—l, who have never ror.lly. loved any man before!" , From Fitzalan her thoughts glided at once to .the events of the preceding night, or, rather,, early morning; again her mood changed, and anger blazed in her eyes. "That sneaking, pale-faced girl is either an ingenius and credulous fool, or she is too deep for me," she reflected. 'Did she really "believe my cock-and-bull story about the Cleetliorpes, I wonder, and will she hold her tongue? I hate the little, prim, depreciating way she looks at me when I say that Uncle Jasper ..is mean, and ought to give his relations something during his lifetime iii order to prevent them from looking forward to his death. 'I hope he will live for many, many years. He is a great man and he has been so wonderfully kind to me.' That is what she had the impudence to say to me" about liim yesterday. Ar i I got out of her that he had lent her money—in spits of the shameful meanness towards me, ho has lout her money! I suppose her admiration for him tricked his vanity. £ must certainly arranga that if lie onu ;• today she shall be out. "1 wish I could ge+ up a \nve afi':.ir for her, to. keep her emplo;nd, and to show Uncle Jasper that it is of no use to dangle after her with his hypocritical, pretended ,paternal attentions. Ted said that Drogo Gordon., admired -her enormously, though I really fail to see what ther-0 is to admire in the little colourless thing. Drogo used to think me very handsome, but he never liked me, I must admit. I think he admired me against his will. Well, I can 1 spare an admirer or two; I wonder now whether I cannot contrive a chance meeting between him and Iris this afternoon, just to keep her out of the way while Uncle Jasper is here?"

Such was the message which Dagmar dispatched to Lord Mallyon's secretary, and the receipt of which greatly puzzled him. Before luncheon his employer informed him that he should he driving out at a little hefore three o'clock that afternoon, and inquired whether Drogo was making any calls; and if so, if he could leave him anywhere. "I have heen asked to meet a friend in Kensington Gardens," the secretary replied, "and T should bo glad if you will drop me there." He did not think it necessary to communicate the mysterious terms of his telegram to Lord Mallyon. The latter was, as usual, extremely husy, and the whole thing might well prove to he a hoax. Still, with an afternoon on his hands, Drogo had sufficient curiosity to decide upon fulfilling the appointment made by the unknown correspondent. The terms with which Drogo lived with his employer were unusual. Colonel Gordon, the young secretary's father, a man prematurely aged and crippled by wounds received in action and by fevers contracted in the East, lived with a Avidowed sister in a little suburban villa, on his pension, aided by a portion of his son's salary. Mrs Gordon was long ago dead, and Drogo's education had been entirely superintended by his father, a man of distinguished bravery, and an unworldly, frank disposition. Duty, he taught his son, should be a man's guiding star; duty, rigid and uncompromising, and the most rigid truth must direct his life. Drogo, from his earliest childhood, had taken in these principles at the pores, -but not in the world, as a private secretary to London's most brilliant and popular advocate 1 and a distinguished member of Parliament, he found at each hour the upholding of his childhood's -faith a more difficult and complicated' business. Tom Gordon had loved Jasper Mallyon as a hoy, and he loved him as a man; that his son. should be in his employ, and a member of .his household, was a delight to the valiant old soldier; but, less keeii than his son in intelligence, and, above all ,in tuition, Colonel Gordon, who rarely in these times met his old friend, had very little understanding of Lord Mallyon's character. To Drogo there was something pathetic in his father's continued belief that Lord Mallyon was as truthful, honourable, high-minded, and pure-lived as himself. The secretary knew quite well that the soldier was as much superior to the lawyer in character as he was inferior in intellect and brilliancy. It was not that Lord Mallyon was by any means a bad man from the point of view of the world, but in the working out of his career he had found reason .for a -profound mistrust of persons by whom he was surrounded. Intensely suspicious, and filled, with. a disdain for the meanness mid pettiness of the majority of'his fellowmen, he derived a secret satisfaction in leading them on to display their evil qualities, and one of his chief reasons for liking his neice Dagmar was that her defects of temper, greed, and extravagance were so plainly to be read on the surface tnat he thought no worse characteristics remained concealed.

For his secretary Baron Mallyon entertained a grudging respect. He knew he could absolutely trust him,, and a man whom he could trust in such a position was invaluable to him. But he knew likewise that Drogo not' only never flattered him, but often strongly disapproved of his method of procedure. It amused Lord Mallyon to reflect that-here' was a reasonably intelligent young man who actually believed that he could have attained his present position, and amassed a very large fortune.', by straightforward method's.; ;', Whathe called the young man's 'Puritanism also aroused amusement within him.' (To bo Continued.)