Lady Marjorie's Love

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 19 February 1913, Page 2

Lady Marjorie's Love

(OUR SERIAL

By Carl Swerdna Author of "To the Uttermost Farthing," "A Mere Ceremony," "A Figlit for Honour," Etc.

CHAPTER YIJI. (Continued.) scended to acknowledge herself, it *vas hv ;i. gesture »o very slight that lii.s eyes liui.vt have been g-uid to make it out. Hut. apparently lie did make it our. "I thought so; 1 thought I couu.n t ho mistaken." To Marjorie's immense indignation, is!ie felt his blight e\is run "over her again from head to foot, run over as if he thought about seeing her and found her exactly what he had expected to see. "Will you allow me to take a second liberty. Lady Marjorie ? May I—as there is no one else to do it —venture to make myself known to you ?" "That is quite unnecessary." Marjorio had frozen more and more; she favored him with that half glance beneath her eyelids which had so tar boon especially reserved for Tom Jucelyn, the detested. "Lady Marlingford has mentioned you to me. ■She told me that we had been requested to expect Mr Cliadbuni's agent." "Indeed?" Ho came to a halt. "You expected to see me, then?'' "We were given to understand that you would probably arrive one day this week, Mr Harrington." "I see. I understand. Pray pardon me for detaining you." Her little haughty movement was expressive, and he stood out of her way. "As 1 am a stranger here, may 1 ask you to tell me if this path will take me to the house?" "This path will take you to the castle if you follow it. It is quite impossible that you can mistake the way." .Marjorie went one way with her head in the air and supremely unconscious of the existence of anything but Jack; ;Mr Barringfcon went the other way very conscious of her, for he looked back at the little slender, erect, black figure with, the small, haughtily carried head more than once and more than twice. The countess' unllattering opinion might be true, and she might be frightfully gone off in her looks, but judging by his expression the agent did not think so. And ho laughed now and then as he went, as though something amused him. Some people are callously hard to impress, and it may have been that Lady Marjorie's extreme stateliness and coldness had failed in its proper effect upon him. But, then, as she herself would have .said disdainfully: "What could one expect from a person of that sort?" The following evening Mr Chadl- - received a long letter from his agent, giving the writer's opinion of Castle Marling and a full description of his reception thereat, from which it appeared that the countess had been vastly gracious. Mr Chadburn was alone when he received it, for his son was likewise out of town. Finishing his second close perusal of the several sheets tlfat composed it, the old gentleman took up another piece of paper from the table which he had already read a good half dozen times. It contained only a line or two —the postscript of a letter which the .same post had brought him from his .son. "You were talking to me a while ago about falling in love, dad, you remember? Well, I have done it. She's the sweetest, prettiest little gij-1 that you or I or any one else ever set eyes oil. This is no joke, mind; it is a serious matter. Yes I have managed to do it at last!" Mr Chadburn,'folding the paper, laughed comfortably, and smoothed his big white mustache. "So that's the state of affairs, i« it my bov?" he sa : d, half aloud. "Well well, it seems that I needn't have troubled myself to give you that hint about my little Lady .Marjorie."

t.e>s' invitation to their own table notwithstanding ; and he showed some glimmering idea of the fitness of things in never intruding upon the precincts of the drawing-room, preferring, it seemed, when lie was not out on font or horseback, to spend most of iiis time in the oak parlor, which was filled with all sorts of ledgers, account books, and bill files, and had the odor of a cigar box, for Mr Harrington, perhaps to keep up his spirits in so much soltitude, smoked amazingly. Marjorie, passing the half-opened door one evening—a tiling she never did if she could help it—and seeing the agent's long figure stretched comfortably back in an equally long cliair, half enveloped in a faint blue cloud of smoke, and certainy looking as lazy as he could do, wondered indignantly what Mr Chadburn would say if he could see him, and almost pitied that deceived old gentleman. Still, he was less objectionable than he might have been, though Marjorie, as a rule, wa ~ consistently ungracious to hirn. But not quite always ; on several occasions ,*he had Allowed herself to relax just a. little. Now and then they encountered each other in her favorite place—the hall—— and it was not always possible, or at any rate not easy, to pass him by with a mere frigid bow. They had talked for a minute or two on these occasions, or for more perhaps, which might surely be done without compromising the dignity of Lady Marjorie Wynne. Then once in the park. Jack, in one of his scrapings and, rummagings, :had run a thorn into his foot and had promptly rent the air with piteous howls as of a dog in the last gasp, to the agony and terror'of his mistress. Mr Harrington providentially chancing to pass that way, had extract eel the thorn and afterward carried the squirming victim home, after which achievement she had fosrid it impossible to snub him for a clear round of the clock. Indeed, Lady Marjorie, when slio was in her room afterward, and sat looking at Jack as he sprawled, on a cushion and licked and whimpered fiver his wounded foot, took herself to task for having, in the impulse of her gratitude, given her hand to Mr Barrinirton as sho thanked him—a thing she bad never done before, and cprtainlv had no intention of doing then. But she did it again, when she met him the next morning—it was almost imno.ssi.ble to avoid it when hi? hand made a movement to take hers and stood talking to him for quite ten minutes with the old lozenge panes of stained glass making crimson and- purple splashes upon her hair, until the countess came rustling along with her stiff crape-covered skirts and disturbed them, sending Harrington off to the oak parlor and Marjorie running upstairs to her room. She scolded herself again when she got there, of course, but if she wanted to excuse herself it was easily done, for the castle was so very dull and she was so terribly lonely—terribly lonely and growing resentful, too, for, in spite of the letter which she had written, half in defiance of the- countess, half in obedience to her .suggestion, Loftus Bligh had not come down to see her.

CHAPTER IX. The countess had been excessively gracious, and moreover, she continued to be so. Nothing could exceed her kindness and coidiality to Mr Chadbum's agent during the first week or so of his residence at Castle Marling, [n her calm, cool way it pleased her ladyship to "take a'fancy" to hiin. She approved his dress, his manners, his looks, which were all those of . a gentleman; she anrounced that she had'formed the highest opinion of his intelligence and business ability, and who was a better judge of all these things than the countess, who was so superior herself and so modestly aware of her own perfection? Tn fact, she avowed herself "charmec!" with Mr Barrington. She quoted all sorEs of revolutionary scraps fror.i her pet Socialistic and Republican roa-si:,g. al! ' triumphantly illustrative of the fact that if you wanted ail that wnf desirable in the mental, moral, and physical way you must search among the masses and leave the classes severely to themselves. Altogether it wa„s not j to be wondered at that her stepdaughter speedily made up lier min'd that she immensely disliked Mr Barringtor and that she recompensed herself for all this display of cordiality and friendliness —which was so absurd of Fenella though just 7 ike her, and to which the man had m right whatever—by keeping out of the agent's w.-y whenever she could and enubbir.g him erushingly whenever she couldn't. Not that lie was entirely without his redeeming points. Even Lady Mariorie. though ungraciously, found herself bound to admit that. He was sensible, for instance, in electing to take his 'meals by himself, the conn- I