Lady Marjories Love

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 20 March 1913, Page 2

Lady Marjories Love

(OURgSERiAL

By Carl Swerdna

Author of "To the Dttemost Fartfcing," "A More Ceremony," "A Fight for Honour," Etc.

ULiAiPTEIt XVII. (Continued.)

•'So short a visit as that? Perhaps you may be able to induce him. to prolong it- —I. hope so, lam sine. I wills o'e Triii-; at once and give orders as to 'having a room prepared for liim. By the way, I don't think you mentioned nny nnnie. "1 beg your pardon—l fear ,1 okl omit it. But not intentionally. My friend's name is George." _ , "I will see that a room is prepared for Mi' George a.t once," concluded the countess, turning away.

.Nothing eon Id have 'been more pleasant, cordial, and kindly than her i eception of Mr .BiU'rington's intim.ition that he 'expected a friend to arrive from London that evening, together with his modest hope that it would not be. inconvenient' to her ladyship if he remained at Castle Marling during the short stay which he proposed to make. If her ladyship's feelings could be judged by her manner, it appeared* that if Mr Barrington had possessed a score of friends and had invited them all she would but 'have been the more delighted. She had been most charming therefore, and lvad sailed off 'to give her directions to Mrs Tring with a, face dressed iu its best and most fascinating smile. Barrington, left to himself, a s she made her stately and 1 .rustling ent smiled, too, 'possibly because he had tolerably gauged the value of her ladyship's smiles and found therein ■some .ground of amusement. Then he glanced impatiently at. his watch, •xn , .l no less impatiently up the staircase, for it was in the hall, upon his return from Upton Wafers. tlVat he had encountered 'Lady Ma.rlingford and made his request. But no one was visible on it or in the gallery above, and no one.became visible during the ensuing ten .jnwmtes. He was growing impatient wh?n a figure did appear, | toward which, although it was not the I figure he was watching for, lie advanc- . ed ouickly. Failing Lady Marjorie, he ] would have preferred to see her j maid he,fore any one else in the house.

"Just the very girl I wanted to see, Alice!" he said, speaking with the bright and frank good humor which had made the damsel admire 'him a good deal more than young Trivnyard, of the Marlingford Arms, might übsisibly have approved. "Cim you tell me where your lady is?" "Mv lady, 'sir? Oh, she/is lying down in .her sitting room! Her' head aches."

"Indeed? lam sorry for that," he said gravely.

"Yos, .sir.'' Alice sighed .sympa- 1 thetieally. "And, if you please, I was to sn.v, sir—my la%' sent mo down —that she will not go out this afternoon—she is sure -slio couldn't bear the sun." "Certainly not —she is wiser to keep quiet! Will yon toll her, with my complini'OTits. that I executed iter ■ commission in Upton Wafers this morning, unjl that a* I.am goina: over (hero later to meet a friend I shall he entirely at her service if «ho requires any tiling; nwro?" Alice, assenting to the .request '«s she' had. done before to a, round score or so of similar cues, gavo Mr Barringtrm her 'brightest a>nd : coyest smile, and tripped, off upstairs again and into hor •mistress' sitting room. Marjorie, half sitting, and half lying on 1:1 m sofa with a novel in her hand and .Tack at her feet, glanced up languidly. "Well, Alice, did yon see Mr Barri'iigton ?"

"Oil' yes,m y lady! He's verv son v .ahout your hrnd. and says ill at, of course, you musn't venture out in tin* sun. Andi T was to say, with his compliment, any laciv, that lie's done vonr commission in Upton Wafers, and is thero anything; else you want thero later, please?" "T think not—110." Marjorio wrinkled her .forehead, curiosity got the hotter of her. "Later," .she said. "Ts lie going to Upton "Wafers again to-dav, then?"

"Oh. yes, my lady!" Delighted to he!in the possession of si. tact which her mistress knew not. Alice promptly enlarged a little. "Mr Barrinp;ton is going to the station to meet a friend —an old friend from London. 1 think, it is. And—and it' seems that lie's to star here, my lady." Here she faltered, for this was entirely a how drawn at a venture.

"'To stay? Oh, is he? Marjorie indolently laid her head down and opened her novel, disdaining to showany'further interest either in ! the friend or in Mr Barrington. "That will do, Alice," she said. But when Aliee had, left 'the, room and she was alone again her thoughts were not hnsv with the novel, hut were husv with Mr Barrington very much "indeed. They had been Imsy with him more or less ever since her talk with the countess last night. Not that she believed iin Fenella's preposterous' idea in the Teast —-not that she did not utterly repudiate, indignantly «coff at the mere notion of such a complete and obvious absurdity, hut to dismiss from her mind

• the memory that the outrageous suggestion had been plainly made and obstinately .insisted upon was quite another thing. She was almost fain to confess to h.M-self that there was I only one thing at present more imposi tsible, and that was to meet him as usual and behave as though it had not been uuicle. -Slio folt that sho could not do it, that somehow eyes, voice, and manner must subtly betray that there was something wrong. And he, 'who did not la,ok audacity of a. kind, might -be capable of saying so : and of plannly asking what it was. And even though there had not been that lalarmiing icolntingency to 0011- . ffidcU', still, to snub him because Fen- ; oil a had chosen ta take a highly I ridiculous idea into her head would be clearly an act of injustice wTiioh li« had really done nothing whatever to merit. Altogether Marj-oric felt for the present the situation was impossible, and so staved upstairs and complained of headache as the easiest means ; of getting out of it. "T don't think I'll {.no down at all to-day," ran her reflections sleepily as sho looked at the lines of h<M' l>ook without at all seeing them. "Or at least T won't until dinner. T can keep out of his way then. Or he'll be «hut up with ■lvis friend, of course —T'd forgotten thaf. So much the better: it's a good thing he's 'coming. In » .(Jay or two it won't matter — wouldn't now if T didn't always turn as red a.s a ipeonv alwut. nothing. like a simpleton. And ho s?e* all. sorts of thimrs -he hn.s no to ope—like bi« impudence! 'Such rubbish, ton! What a p rfeet stupid Feneila is' And she had to confess that he'd never said as match as a syllable to her. even hint-in? at anything preposterous. T should think not. indeed ! I mi<r.ht ha-ro had my row this afternoon hn+. for lie.r nonsense. Oh. h;ow w>on wiN Au.nt Eleanor answer pi"i T wonder ? And who can ' this fri°n ( l of his bp?" 'Matters fell out so that. Barrinpton found himself unable to drive to Upton Wafer's n« bo l' a cl meant to do to meet Iv.s fri«nd. Farmer T/orton, of the Upland Farm, was not by nnv means tho only t-fnant on the Castle Marling estate whom he had found prolix, mysterious, and troublesome, and it so obapced that two of them made their appearance in the oak parlor dmning the afternoon and harassed and bewildered the agent exceedingly. And not only so, hut almost put him out of temper to boot, the nerseverine lonc-windedness of each beintr such that he was forced to send the dogcart alone to the station. But ho recovered himself with the departure of his visitors, ami sauntered out and into the drive, designing to wait there until it should return ami briup; "Go-niW with it. Rnrokwig as ho strolled slowly on and down within view of the entrance gates, be. presently took 'a telearam from bis pocket and opened ami over it. It was the one which he had received in reply to the one sent to George, and contained nothing .but the time, at which lyi.s train would arrive at Upton Wafers. Smiling as he read it — 1 a K mile that was rather nneei- and , enuniiatiea.l—he .slowly tore' it up and scattered it. I j (To be Continued.')