The Lady Paramount

is gaiest. Blackbirds were dropping their liquid notes, thrushes were singing, hidden in the trees. Here and there, in spaces enclosed by hurdles, sheep browsed or drowsed, still

ed his fly, a shabby victoria, piled with the manifo

flyman, giving him his fare. "Drive on to the hou

one was by no means prepared for, the horse dashed suddenly off in a great clattering gallop

oice, in a sort of w

he young c

e tabor'

d suave, that broke, at the end

ny tu

to avow the worst at once, but, for the rest, distinctly a pleasant-looking; with a smi

ls?" Anthony said, with a phlegm

eping time to a silent dance-tune. "All I can tell you is that it's someone very nice and uncommonly like me. You should know at your age

poppies, poignantly red and green: the subject, very likely, of his preoccupation, for, "Are n't they beauties?" he demanded, and his manner had changed to one of

sure, and only muttered, "H'm," "Oh, my little scarlet starlets," he purr

with a gesture that was reminis

ntine, of course. Ah, in those days painting was a fine art, and worth a rational being's consideration,-in those days, and in just that little Tuscan c

cian order. Such a nose, perhaps, carried with it certain obligations-an obligation of fastidious dressing, for example. Anthony, at any rate, was very fastidiously dressed indeed, in light-grey tweeds, with a straw hat, and a tie that bespoke a practised hand beside a discerning taste. But his general air, none t

debonair and vivacious, not so tall as Anthony, yet tall enough never to be contemned as short, and verging upon what he was fain to call "the flower of a sound man's youth, the golden, gladsome, romantic age of forty," he looked delightfully fresh, and wide-awake, and cheerful, and

ny si

ts of delight with which you hail my unexpected home-coming. The last you

e in which, I think, kindled a

eucedly unexpected, either. I 've felt a pricking in my thumbs any time these three months; and no longer ago than yesterd

y expounded. "When the cat's away, the mice a

y." He raised his bunch of poppies, and posed it aloft before him, eyeing it, his head cock

t for the house; and you (unless your habits have strangel

ere beauty?-for its quaintness, and in some measure too, perhaps, for its history:-Craford Old Manor, a red-brick Tudor house, low, and, in the rectangular style of such houses, rambling; with a paved inner court, and countless tall chimneys, like minarets; with a secret chapel and a priests' "hiding-hole," for the Crafords were one of those old Catholic families whose boast it is that they "have never lost the Faith"; wit

ned the crest of a sweeping bit of upland, and the house and the sea came in v

with banners, zigzagging up from the world's rim, to bid you welcome. Oh, you were clearly not unexpected. If no smoke rises from yonder chimneys,-if your ancestral chimney-stone is cold,-that's merely because, despite the season, we 're having a spell of warmish wea

," said Anthony, with languor

ive me, then, if I 'l

sidewise, so that he m

provided you blurt it br

g his head and shoulders. "Betra

I was taught in my yo

th

otherwise, I suppose, for the sake of peace, I 'd best tell you, and have done with it. W

hony, with no

's fac

I tell him that a great white elephant of a house, which for years has been eating its head off, and keeping him poor, is at last-by my supernatural diligence-convert

ntioned, "is the perf

bet a shilling, all the same,"-and he scanned Anthony's c

ralised, "to offer a bet on what you have

Adrian. He tossed his

s! He 's wa

roke, in someth

ld have sworn you did n't. Well, I do-to my consternation. And it is my duty to caution you that the estate won't stand it-to call that an estate," he divagated, with a kind of despairing sniff, "which is already, by the extravagances of your ancestors, shrunken to scarcely more than three acres and a cow. You 're wanting mo

efore," said Antho

dest of, since he's wanting money. If it were n't that the new house is let, he 'd find my pockets in the condition of Lord Tumtoddy's noddl

" said Anthony, with submissi

ion," Adrian threw out, "in

's let to a duffer, of course. None but a

ite mistaken," said Adr

et to a

dy duffers," Ant

disapprobation. "This lady, if you can bear to hear t

Anthony's interest ap

n lau

ould rouse you. A

; and his interest

of some splendid old Italian story,-like Pompilia, like Francesca,-like Kate the Queen, when

An adventuress, then,

never get

says he-as if I had n't got my quarter in advance. I let furnished-what? Well, that's the custom-rent payable quarterly in advance. And cultivated. She's read everything, and she prattles English like you or me. She had English governesses when she was a kiddie. And appreciative. She thinks I 'm without exception the nicest man she 's ever

s, as at an unutte

the nicest person who was ever born to live with her: a Miss Sandus, Miss Ruth Sandus, a daughter of the late Admiral Sir Geoffrey Sandus. Sh

and I h

e. She 's as sweet as remembered kisses after death. She 's as sharp as a needle. She 's as bright as morning

rest appeared

?" he asked, with the inflection o

n bri

nca is n't seventy-four, nor anything near it. She's not twenty-four. Say about twenty-five and a fraction. With such hair too-and such

him. "Contain yourself. Where i

a shadow with uncongenial and ill-remunerated labour, in an obscure backwater of the country, like this, do you? If I could tell you that, I could tell you the secretest secrets of the sages, and I should be making my everlasting fortune-oh, but

, off his guard. "A my

on the shoulder. "A mysterious disappearance. The mot is capital. That's it, to a hair's breadth. Oft thought befor

a reflective eye, "you 're an effulgent sort of egotist, as

of ideas. "Donna Susanna is a widow, a poor lone wido

marry her?" A

" said

ld even learn to love her. She 'd give you a home and a position in the world; she 'd make a sober citizen of you; and she 'd take you off my

d a deliriously conscious laugh. "What nonsense you do talk

his pretty curls," said Anthony, w

ont, a mellow line of colour, with the purple of its old red bricks and the dark green of its ivy, sunlit against the darker green of the park, and the blue of the tender English sky. The terrace steps were warm under their feet, as

k to brown, and defined itself:-"that hackneyed type of Stage-property hall," I have heard Adrian lament, "which connotes immediately a lost will, a family secret, and the gh

cross a corner, the Craford arms emblazoned in the chimney-piece above; and a wide oak staircase leading to the upper storey. The room was furnished, incongruously enough, in quite a modern fashion, rather shabbily, and I daresay rather mannishly. There were leather arm-chairs and settles, all a good deal worn, and stout tables littered

never gets leisure for his morning meditation till luncheon 's cleared away. And that's what it is to be a pious butler. I 'm doubting whether there was anyone to disembarrass that flyman of yours of your luggage. So he 's probably driven off with it all to his humble, happy home. I see none of it about. N

ked Anthony,

ian, with his nose in the air, enquired. "On wh

" said

most childlike na?veté. "Ah, well, on Friday, then;-though Friday is unlucky, and one rarely shines on a day of abstinence, anyhow. It's all a fa

tion, produced his cigarette-case, selected a cigarette, returned his cigarette-cas

t, through a screen of smoke, "not Frid

o paint itself i

y." He waited, an

ny ch

est desire to make the good woman's acquain

ched out app

ny-" he ad

s! The smug faces, the vacuous grins; the lifeless, limping attempts at conversation; the stares of suspicious incomprehension if you chance to say a thing that has a point; and then, the thick, sensible, slightly muddy boots. I 'll pay no calls. And as fo

That will refresh you. Then, at half-past four, you can renew the advantages of my society at tea in the garden. Oh, y

," said Anthony. He rose, an

till he had re

not on Sunday. Where on earth do you suppo

" Anthony

to Wetherleigh, where could she hear her Mass