The Swoop of the Vulture.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10706, 29 August 1912, Page 2

The Swoop of the Vulture.

QW SERIAL.)

BY OWEN MASTERS. Author of "His Heart's Desire," "One Impassioned Hour," "Captain Einlyn's Bride," "The Deverell Heritage," "The Ironmaster's .Daughter," etc.

CHAPTER. II [. THE CHEAT SECRET. That ove;;iny, at the dower hou.se. Doctor idalKine had a conversation wiin Grace on the same -subject—the marriage which was now practically agreed upon between herself ana Harold I'Jnstone.

"When you have quite made up your mind. Grace," ho said, "and you really think that the marriage is in accordance with—well, perhaps 1 ought not (.o put it quite so prosaically as that, although you and J are so used to talking that way."

"Oh, yes, uncle," she laughed. "You mean —do I think it in accordance with the eternal fitness of things, which includes my own affections and inclinations? Yes." .she continued, putting her elbows on the table, and her chin between her hands, and looking at him as few others were able to do for any length of time, straight :n the eyes. "Yes, you may call it an illustration of the law of selection. In plain English, it comes to this —that Harold loves me, and I —yes, I think I love him."

The last sentence was not spoken as a girl really in love would have uttered the words. There was just a' suspicion of restraint, a little hesitation between, the words, which might not have struck an ordinary observer in their true moaning, but whicli Doctor Halkine grasped at once. "Then, Grace," ,ho said, leaning back in his chair, and taking a long, mediative pull at his pipe, "I may take it that you have really made up your mind that you can marry this young man, and, as the storybooks say, 'life happily ever ever.' " "I think so, uncle," she replied. "At least, so far as one can forsee these things; and yet, you know, it is very curious. He is almost the opposite to everything that you ever taught me to look upon as the best in maai."

"That is a very singular remark," said the doctor, sending a cloud of smoke curling up toward the ceiling. "Ileally, it is one of the most curious remarks that a young lady in your position could very well make. What am I to understand by it? Surely you are not beginning to see soots on the sun already?"

"Oh, no no!" she said; "that isn't a bit what I mean. What I ought to have said is this —you have always trained and educated me to think that the highest qualities of man are the intellectual and mental, and that, however good, strong, and manly a man might lie, he was, after all, only a higher kind of animal, unless he possessed exceptional mental and intellectual powers." "That is a matter which you really ought to think .seriously about," lie said, keeping his eyes upon hers, and speaking in a tone which was familiar enough to her, but'which, it would.not have done Harold ftnstone very much good to hear. "You know that you are not merely an ordinary girl, who can make a brilliant marriage 'like th;is just because von ore 'beautiful, well-edrrated, ,and hirly well-off. Your education has been very different from that of the '-tr! : nary society beauty, and it has given you powers which they lwpo, possibly, never dreamed of."

"Frankly, I hone it isn't she said, getting up from her seat, ar.d beginning to walk u:\ and down the

room with .her hands clasped behind her: "Because, since that afternoon in the nark, when Harold told hip that lie loved me, and wanted me, and I looked at him L "

"Yes, you looked at him." said the doctor; "and what then.? You looked, him straight in the eyes, I suppose, and then ?"

"That," she replied, Avith a quick flush, "is not the question that you ought to ask and I certainly shan't answer it. What I mean is this/'' 'die wont on, more seriously: "Ever since then I have had an uncomfortable. haunting suspicion that I have got some sort of power, as you x\y, that I use unconsciously to —to make binlove me."'

"My dear Grace," replied her uncle, "if that is all' you are tiohg to you need not have taken the trouble. It is merely the power that every beautiful girl has to make a man love her, provided always that she exercises it over the right man. There is no mystery about it, except the eternal mystery of what people call love." <

"Yes, but there is something else. You may bo able to explain it, but I can't —something that is a complete mystery to me."

"Ah! Now perhaps we are coming to the most interesting part of the problem. T will solve the mystery for you if I can; but what is it?" "It is a very difficult thing," slie replied, "for a girl to explain to any man, even if he is her uncle."

"Yes," he said, so gravely that his tone rather surprised her. "Yes, I understand that it is difficult —it must be; and, by way of helping you out a little, T suggest that you should detach yourself entirely from the personal question, and put it into the ordinary language that we are accustomed to use."

"It is this way," she said, pulling herself up straight, and giving her head a quick little though she would shake a certain set of

t thoughts out of it: "Vm afraid 1 am ' not properly in love with Harold. .1 ; think of him sometimes in an inipor- . anna! sort < f way, after wo liave j Ijoon for a long walk, or riding to-p-other, or after wo have been fishing

at tho manor. But after that he fade.s completely out of ray existence, and when I meet him again the next day, I have a curious .sense of making a now acquaintance."

"That is very easily understood, Grace," said the doctor. "You have been educated quite differently from .other girls. Thanks to my selfishness and your devotion, you have lived a life of comparative isolation from society. You have travelled with me through the wild outLinds of the earth, and what other girls have learned from books you have learned from the presence of Mother Nature herself. On the other hand, you know something of .social conventions, partly from books and partly from experience, and you have also learned how much or how little they are worth. On the whole, I think it is not very surprising that you should find yourself falling in love in a somewhat unconventional way. Then there is another thing that I don't think you have quite grasped. The -averago girl naturally falls in love in the average way, as a rule, with tho average man."

"Do you mean Harold?" she interrupted, stopping in front of him. "Oh, no. Harold Enstono is by no means an ordinary man; he is like yourself. Ho lias acquired the best of his education where you got it. He has learned to understnud that eloquent silence which is the speech of nature. To as to you, towns and cities are simply overcrowded human hives, although he has not, so far, attained the higher knowledge ' that you liave." I

"Ah, yes." she said. "What is that higher knowledge? Perhaps that may bo the secret of this strange lovo of mine—tho love which really only seems to live when I am near. "What is it?"

I "Shall I tell you the grot, secret, ! Grace?" asked her uncle, rivng, ai;tl I hegiit'iinE to walk up and down Hio room. "But no, perhaps I had hotter not, for, after all, you might not like to know it." "After that you will have to tell me, uncle," she said, laughing in a ( strange unmirthful manner. "You

1 said that in the verv way to make me want to know. Nov, what is it? Tf you don't, tell me, T shall go to bed miserable, and probably get up with the resolve to break off everything with Harold, because I shall think that I only love him in a philosophical and therefore unnatural way." (To ho Continued.)