A SECRET FOE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10140, 10 December 1910, Page 2

A SECRET FOE.

(OUR SERIAL.)

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

CHAPTER XL—Continued. Lord. Mallyon paused and scanned Iris intently with his piercing hazel eyes. Iris had before experienced the singular magnetism of his regard, which seemed to draw her eyes to his. For a while she endured it with lowered lashes, then, compelled to look up, she met his gaze, and detecting in it a new element which puzzled and alarmed her, she suddenly blushed and looked down again troubled and confused. Almost at the- same moment a knock at the door heralded the entrance of the footman. "I beg your pardon, my lord, but Mrs Mavrogodato and Miss Mallyon are in the drawing room." "Show them in here." As the door closed on the servant, Lord Mallyon took Iris gently by the arm and led her towards a small inner compartment, furnished as a smoking-room, which opened out of his study, separated therefrom by heavy curtains of chestnut velvet, looped back by cords. These he loosened, and before Iris had time to realize the importance of his action he had re-entered the study, leaving , I her an unwilling eavesdropper to the I scene which followed. i The immediate, opening of the door and the rustle of silk-lined gowns apprised her of the entrance of Dagmnand her mother. It was the latter who at once began upon her subject. "Oh,,my dear Jasper, we have come before twelve instead of at one o'clock, as you see. The fact was that we couldn't keep away. We have had - such dreadful trouble with that young person you sent us—Miss Travers, I mean. She has gone off now in a huff, all simply because ' 1 found her, embracing a gentleman who was making us a visit, and I said to her, ■ 'This is not proper.' What would you have said, me dear Jasper? I could not have in my house a 'young person who was reprehensible in her conduct. And Dagmar, she loved her, and is so disappointed. My poor little Dagmar, who seldom likes women, she was j enraptured by Miss Travers. But I always said there was something too sly and quiet about her, and that she made eyes with those big orbs of hers. Mr Mavrogodato, he took her part, and he used to like her to give him his breakfast.- I caught her makingeyes at him—they understand each other a little too well, I am ' sure. She was a little coquette, a bad little girl that will not come to any good. And when I found that she had slipped off like that last night, without one word, I said to Dagmar, 'What will this girl do? She will go to my generous, my brilliant brother-in-law, and she will tell him lies, and get more money out of him.' If appears that she boasts that she got money out of you before. It is plain she is an adventuress, a bad girl. And I said, 'I will not have your uncle imposed upon, Dagmar. We must do our duty, and our duty is to put Lord Mallyon on his guard.'. Therefore it-is that we have come so early to see you."

that, early as their visit had been, Iris had been before hand with them.

"I am perfectly ill with distress about the whole thing, uncle," she put in softly. "Look at my red eyes and my pale face. I assure you I was awake nearly all last night, crying about the affair." Lord Mallyon examined her face, putting on his glasses for that purpose, and perceived at once that Dagmar was speaking the Jruth. Her eyelids were swollen, and underlined by heavy, dark shadows, and the lovely brunette tints of her skin seemed blurred and pallid in the strong side light of the wide window. "You must not play tricks with your beauty, my dear child," he said, "and I dare say, if it Will comfort you to know it, we shall find that your friend Miss Travers has not behaved so badly after all." She glanced at him quickly. Something significant in his tone struck her. But Mrs Mavrogodato, who was destitute of observation broke in again. "My dear rasper," she cried, "how can there be any mistake F We actually found Miss Travers with Mr Fitzalan's arm around her waist, and her head on his shoulder." "I think you will find," he went on, in the same level tones, "that Miss Travers was quite as much annoyed by Mr Fitzalan's impertinent attentions as your daughter could have been." - "Has Miss Travers told you this, uncle?" Dagmar asked sharply.

"I should not need her assurance on that point. On board the Kaiser Wilhelm I was the unseen and unexpected witness of an exactly similar scene. On that occasion Mr Fitzalan tried to kiss Miss Travers against her will, and she strongly resented his impertinence." A bright crimson patch of colour began to burn in each of Dagmar's cheeks. They were danger signals, denoting the smouldering wrath beneath. She felt at that moment that she could have kined Fitzalan, and Iris too. But her uncle's next speech so transfixed her with astonishment that for the moment she forgot her resentment against her fickle lover. "You two ladies will be exchanging a piece of news with me," he v said pleasantly, "for I have something to tell you. I find that there is a growing tendency in London to allude to me as though I were an aged person with one foot in the grave, whose nearest relatives were daily on the watch for his demise and their consequent enrichment. As i flatter myself I have many years .of excellent health before me, this ruinour annoys me; and in thinking over my best plan for disproving it, I have, hit upon one which will, I hope, meet with your approval. And that is, to marry." "Marrv! Yon!"

Mrs Mavrogodato had chatted extremely fast, as was her wont, until she had talked herself out of breath in that high-pitched voice of hers, the sound of which grated Lord Mallyon's ears.

The words came in something between a gasp and a shriek from the elder woman. jJagmar spoke not a word, but her brilliant colour paled to an ashen grav. .?.':..

At this point Dagmar, who had sat quite silent, watching her uncle's impassive face, rose and crossed to him. Instinctively she realized that her mother had' gone too ; far, and that Lord Mallyon did not believe Her. In her soft, rich voice she now interposed, leaning over the desk be-, hind which she was seated, and looking him full in the face with her melting, dark eyes. "I do hope, dear Uncle Jasper," she began, "that you don't think we were too hard on her. I own that just at first I was very angry, and quite lost my temper. You know how excitable I am, and that whatever I feel strongly I am compelled to say right out, whatever the consequences may be. I have an absurd prejudice against Mr Fitzalan, but from what I have seen of him I don't think he would put himself out to make love to a girl without a great deal of encouragement. ' He is too lazy. And then I had grown so fond of Miss Travcrs, and had treated her altogether so like a relation or dear friend, but it grieved me terribly that she should have started a sort of vulgar nurse-maid flirtation with a gentleman visiting at the house. Perhaps I am exceptionally cold myself, but I have very little sympathy with that sort of thing." "I do not say that I could have retained her," Mrs Mavrogodato's shrill tones took up the tale, "but she gave me no chance. She did not once ask me to find another governess, but off she went, no one knows where. Only "Watkins says she thinks she saw, from the nursery window, a gentleman help Miss Travcrs into a cab and drive away with her." The last detail was'purely an invention of Mrs Mavrogodato's, calculated to heighten the effect of her story. But her hearer remained singularly immoved, quietly tapping with his pen on tine blotting-pad before him, and gazing at her with embarassing directness, while she poured forth her case against her ex-governess. Dagmar, watching him, augured ill from his evident lack of surprise, and began to guess

"l'ou seem siirprised," observed Lord Mallyon, in his' most dulcet tones, turning fo his sister-in-law. "But an extraordinary hale man of sixty has a right to expect still some happines in life, if he has worked hard for many years." "Jasper! Are you Joking 1 Or who—who is it?"

"I am certainly not joking," he returned with grave dignity. "The lady is beautiful, good, and gifted. I admire her more than I have admired any woman for many years; and young as- she is——-" "Young!"

"Young as she is," he repeated, not heeding the interruption, "she has a discretion and self possession beyond her years. It is true that I have not yet asked her consent, but in your presence I mean to do so now." "Now?"

Instinctively both ladies sprang to their feet, their startled eyes following Lard Mallyon, as he deliberately crossed to the chestnut velvet curtains and pulling them apart drew Iris out by the hand and led 'her, pale and trembling, into the larger room.

Already for some minutes she had known what was coming, had understood the meaning of that long gaze of his a few minutes before. Her brain was in a whirl; she v was waiting for the words which she knew

he must speak, and a feeling came over her that that way hor fate lay, avoid it as she might. (To be Continued.)