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Show ;; . - - K f!l g !i! By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE I f! i I ' ' "' " ' " m i ' i 1 1 . i i .. , i , 1 1 ..i,.i..iMLJ LYDIA IS VASTLY AMUSED BY PETER TRAFT'S WHIMSICAL WAY OF MAKING LOVE, BUT SHE IS MORE SERIOUSLY IMPRESSED WITH THE PERSONALITY OF QUOIN WHO SEEMS TO HER THE TYPICAL YANKEE , SYNOPSIS. A well-bred youug Englishwoman, nervous and suspicious, sus-picious, finds when she boards the steamer Alsatla, bound from Liverpool Liv-erpool to New York, that her stateroom mate Is Mrs. Amelia Beggar-staff, Beggar-staff, a fascinating, wealthy American widow of about sixty years. The girl Introduces herself as Lucy Carteret and says she is going to America to meet her father. Lucy's behavior puzzles Mrs. Beggarstaff, Beggar-staff, who is vastly surprised to find the girl lu possession of a magnificent mag-nificent necklace, stolen from a museum some time previously and passes the news on to her friend, Quoin, a private detective on board. Lucy, dressing in the dark In her stateroom, hears a mysterious conversation con-versation between two men just outside her window and recognizes one of them as Thaddeus Craven, her father, whom she hasn't seen for five years. She confesses to Mrs. r.eggarstaff that she is In reality Lydia Craven. The girl discovers 1t father and young Mrs. Mer-riless, Mer-riless, a charming widow, engaged to be married. Mrs. Merriless Is bewildered for a moment because Craven had always posed as a bachelor, but she and Lydia like one another. Craven tells Lydia he secretly represents the British government In the United States. -Peter Traft falls in love with Lydia and Mrs. Merrilees displays a magnificent mag-nificent necklace which she says she's going to give Lydia for a wedding wed-ding present. CHAPTER VII. Mrs. Beggarstaff was right, who herself admitted that she was always right : Lydia was a very happy girl. She had, Indeed, never been so happy since those memorable days when Craven's Cra-ven's rare, capricious, and always unexpected un-expected appearances in England had invariably signalized his amazing sprees of paternal indulgence frolics from which, as from the nirvana of fairy tales, one emerged in childish demoralization de-moralization to renew acquaintance with the hard and grlmy'facts of life as lived In Mrs. Grummle's Blooms-bury Blooms-bury lodging house, or with the chilly routine of the Misses Stint's Select Academy for Daughters of Gentlemen. She lived those days in delicious excitement. ex-citement. She would be a strange girl of twenty had her imagination not quickened to the romance inherent in the words secret agent. To think herself her-self the object of stealthy surveillance, as daughter and confidante of a past master of devious diplomacy ; to think she must ever keep her courage bright in the shadow of nameless dangers, be forever jealous of the great secret, comport herself always warily In these persuasions lay delight as deep and abiding as that of a girl playing the mischief at her first bal masque. Not Infrequently she would catch Craven regarding her with his dark and quizzical smile; and then she would flush and smile spiritedly in return, re-turn, thrilled to think he read her thoughts and understood. One circumstance alone flawed the perfect jewel of her happiness the second and final disappearance of her sardonyx cameo. The first time Lydia had missed It It had turned up safe and sound before be-fore bedtime In its place on top of the chest of drawers. But the next day it vanished again and finally. And though for a time her hope ran high that the finder would return the trinket trin-ket in view of the rather heavy reward re-ward posted by Craven, when nothing noth-ing of the sort happened she felt forced to accept the hypothesis that the clasp had worked loose when she had been lounging beside the rail, delivering de-livering the brooch to the sea. In her new relationship with her father fa-ther Lydia found several friendships that, however young, promised permanence. perma-nence. For one, Mrs. Beggarstaff had unquestionably un-questionably taken a fancy to Lydia, which the girl was quick to divine and reciprocate with a frank and if undemonstrative un-demonstrative real affection. And the Dowager Dragon was daily wasting wast-ing much time in amiable bickering with Craven about his daughter's future, fu-ture, openly discountenancing his intention in-tention to make Lydia part of his menage; me-nage; at least until there should be a second Mrs. Craven to keep his house In order and its master, into the bargain. bar-gain. "Though," she , once amended acridly ac-ridly In the presence of Mrs. Merrilees, Merri-lees, "as for that, to ray taste, Betty's altogether too frivolous to make a proper duenna. Mark my words, Tad, Just as soon as that pretty featherweight feather-weight head finds out life with you is hot one rouud of pleasure, she's going to cut loose and lead you a dance that won't leave a breath in your fat little body. And then what will become of the child?" "Oh, blow your meddling!" Craven retorted with entire good humor. "You forget the 'child' is of age or will be in another six months. She can take care of herself. If it turns out she can't, I give you permission to use your well-known arts of moral suasion and nag her until she's mad enough to hitch up as companion to a saw-toothed saw-toothed destroyer of reputations like yourself." "She could do far worse," the Dowager Dow-ager Dragon sniffed; "and will If I let you have your wav." "Which is just what is going to happen. hap-pen. Lydia and I understand each other, my home's the place for her, and there she goes, straight from the steamer." When he had detached his fiancee and departed, the Dowager Dragon took up the thread of her discourse with Lydia. "It's up to you, my dear," she announced. an-nounced. "I mean to say, It's for you to decide. I warn you you'll never be happy. Tad's not old. enough to be a father. For that matter, he's not old enough to be a husband. lie's heedless, heed-less, irresponsible, as flighty as Betty Merrilees. He never has grown up, and he never will. He's I'eter Pan, with all the innocence expurgated." Here the Dowager Dragon paused and, receiving no response, regarded with suspicion the object of her solicitude. solici-tude. "What are you smiling at, pray?" she demanded in dudgeon. "Do you think I'm merely blustering for your amusement?" "I beg your pardon," Lydia said meekly, hastening to erase a smile; the idea of the chief agent of Downing Down-ing Street in America being heedless, Irresponsible and flighty having proved too much for her sense of the ridiculous. ridicu-lous. "You made me think of something some-thing funny. But please, Mrs. Beggarstaff, Beg-garstaff, don't say any more. The thing is quite settled; and you don't know how stubborn he is and I'm his daughter !" The frown of the Dowager Dragon relaxed, and a crusty smile succeeded. "So be it! I sha'n't contend with you or Tad another minute. But when you see your mistake, remember, my home is always open to you. You're a cheerful cheer-ful snippet, and not a bit hard to look at, and I believe I could grow quite fond-of you. Now promise you'll come, if ever you're in trouble. You owe me that consolation at least if only for being graceful In defeat." Lydia promising lightly, a placated Dowager Dragon consented to let the subject drop. Then there was Mrs. Merrilees, who bade fair to prove the sister more than the stepmother, the girl friend more than either, who, once Craven had wheedled her out of her resentment of his putatively negative and Innocent deception, seemed to find In Lydia just one more reason for being fond of Craven and viewing with confidence their life after marriage. Though vain and avid of admiration, she seemed incapable of any sort of mean emotion, and was as generous as the good sunlight. An adorable creature! Peter Traft, the third of three newfound new-found friends, was a riddle Lydia couldn't read, but found endlessly diverting. di-verting. Publicly sentimental about Lydia, brazenly seeking every opportunity oppor-tunity to seclude her with himself, once this was accomplished, he flouted sentiment, ridiculed the world (including (includ-ing himself), and kept her in a state of amusement that precluded discouragement discour-agement of his eccentric wooing. "I want you to know me as I really am," he informed her on one occasion. occa-sion. "If I should seem as sober-sided and solemn as your next adorer, you'd marry me in ignorance of my true ehnracter." "But I haven't the slightest intention of marrying you, Mr. Traft." "That's a flue line," he commented admiringly. "What you heroines of modern fiction would do without it heaven only knows! It's certain our novelists don't, or they'd invent something some-thing less stereotyped. But you mustn't forget it really means nothing In the first chapters. Along about page three hundred and twenty-one It's a signal either for the clench or for the bouncer." "I do wish you'd talk sensibly In language lan-guage I can understand." "As for the language, if it eramns your style, Miss Craven, believe me, I'll slip the rollers under it and give it the gate! But as for talking sensibly sen-sibly not I, not while sparring for wind and trying to figure how I stand with you. It wouldn't be fair to snare your affections with the Impression that tiie architect of my dome used any building material more substantial substan-tial than funny-bones." "Do you mean me to understand you're incurably frivolous?" "Rather !" "Isn't It a pretty poor recommendation recommenda-tion for a suitor to advance?" "Do you think so?" He appeared to ponder this gravely. "But I can't see that. Think how deadly life would be with a man who took everything seriously himself, for instance, and "But I Haven't the Slightest Intention of Marrying You, Mr. Traft." the candidate for president on the Prohibition Pro-hibition ticket, and Lloyd George, and ah the Anti-Woman Suffrage movement. move-ment. There's only one thing I'm ready to promise to take seriously. Now pretend you don't get me !" "You are quite, quite hopeless!" "Wrong again: I was never more hopeful. First thing you know you'll be lying awake nights wondering if I can possibly be as silly as I sound, and thinking what a pity 'tis if true; and when you come to that stage, it'll be all over but the rice and old shoes and Niagara Falls !" "Certainly you must be an incurable optimist!" '.'You think so? I eay, that's an awfully aw-fully good sign! You're thinking about me already !" But of the four it was Quoin who most Impressed Lydia's impressionable imagination. His seemed an individu-' ality rarely simple and straightforward, straightfor-ward, to which latency and indirection must be altogether foreign. He was, Lydia understood, a criminal investigator investi-gator of unusual attainments; yet he utterly lacked every idiosyncrasy of the "great" detective of fiction. He was a long, lank man, with a thin face of strong features. His wide, thin Hps drooped quizzically at their corners. And his eyes were dark and, normally, deep with humorous expression. To Lydia's notion he was the Yankee type Incarnate, but without that uncouth-ness uncouth-ness she had been bred to expect. Because the Alsatla, groping her blind way at half-speed through wrappings wrap-pings of fog ever more opaque, persisted per-sisted in making night hideous with her unearthly whoop of warning, the concert all but fell flat. Only Craven's Cra-ven's inexhaustible enthusiasm saved the function. When it was over Lydia, announcing announc-ing her intention of going to bed, de- j layed only to say good-night to I'eter I Traft on the upper eompanionway lauding, near the doorway to the port side of the boat deck. One-half of this double door was open. Beyond It was nothingness a Hat wall of gray but feebly tinted with artificial light. Then, descending to the promenade deck, she turned aft to her stateroom, and was about to enter when she heard her name called in Craven's voice, and since she had left him only a few minutes before the center of an animated group in the music room with pardonable, surprise she discovered discov-ered the man coming swiftly toward her from the after part of the ship. "Just to say good-night!" he explained ex-plained hastily, folding his daughter in the tenderest of embraces; and then In a rapid whisper, "Meet me on deck this deck to port fifth stanchion aft from the door in an hour. If anyone seems to be watching you, go back!" And again aloud, "Good-night, dear child, good-night!" he murmured fondly, releasing her, and hurried forward. for-ward. Almost without her knowledge the knob turned in Lydia's grasp ; nnd when she found herself alone in that dark stateroom her hands trembled so with excitement that for a moment she fumbled in vain for the switch. Watch for startling developments develop-ments described in the next installment in-stallment something big coming! com-ing! (TO BJi CONTINUED.) |
