Show 0 A 00 0 4 ca TOR J 9 0 fay A CONAN r DOYLE ay cigar it was after dinner and through the open french window of the dining room a clear view was to be had of the tennis court and the players A set had just been finished and young charles westcott Westra West acott mott was hitting up the balls as high as be he could send them in ili the mid die dle of the ground doctor walker and mrs were pacing up and down the lawn the lady waving her IN international TE CHAPTER III CONTINUED admiral hay denver did not b belong elong to the florid white haired hearty school of sea ea dogs which is more corn mon in works ot of fiction than in the navy list tn the contrary cont iary he was the representative of a much more common type which Is the antithesis of the con sailor he was a thin hard featured man with arx an ascetic acquin line cast of face grizzled and hollow cheeked clean shaver with the excel tion of the tiniest curved promontory of ash colored whisker an observer accustomed to classify men might have put him down as a canon of the church with a taste for lay costume and a country life life or as the master of a large public school who joined his scholars in their outdoor sports his lips were firm his chin prominent he had a hard dry eye and his manner was precise and formal forty years of stern bisci pline had made him reserved and s lent yet when at his ease with an equal he could readily assume a less quarter deck style and he had a fund of little dry stories of the world and its ways which were of interest from roin one who had seen so many phases of life dry and spare as lean as a jockey and as tough as whipcord he might be seen any day swinging his silver head ed malacca cane and pacing along the suburban roads with the same meas ared gait with which he had been wont to tread the poop of his flagship he wore a good service stripe upon his cheek tor for on one side it was pitted and scarred where a spurt of gravel knocked up by a round shot and struck him thir ty years before when he served in the lancaster gun battery yet he was hale and sound and though he was fifteen years senior to his friend the doctor he might have passed as the younger man mrs hay denver s life had bad been a very broken one and her record upon land represented a greater amount of endurance and self sacrifice than his upon the sea they had been together for tour four months after their marriage and then had come a hiatus of four years during which he was flitting about between st helena and the oil rivers in a gunboat then came a blessed year of peace and domesticity to be followed by nine years with only a three months break five upon the pacific station and tour four on the east in dalh after that was a respite in the shape of five years in the channel squadron with periodical runs homei home and then again he was off to the med for three years and to hall fax tor for four now at last however this old married couple who were still almost strangers to one another had come together in norwood where it if their short day had been cheque red and broken the evening at least promised to be sweet and mellow in person mrs hay denver was tall and stout with a bright round ruddy cheeked face still pretty with a gracious matronly comeliness her whole life was a round of devotion and of love which was dt d vided between her husband and her only son harold this son it was who kept them in the neighborhood of 0 london for the admiral a was as fond of ships and of salt water as ever and was wa s as I 1 appy in the sheets of a two ton yacht as on the bridge of his sixteen knot monitor mon itoi had he been untied the devonshire or hampshire coast would certainly have been I 1 Is choice there wag was harold how ever and harold s interests were their chief care harold was four and awen y now three years before he had been tal en in hand b by an acquaintance of his father s the head of a considerable firm of stock brokers and fairly launched upon change his three hundred guinea entrance fee paid his three sureties of five I 1 undred pounds each found his name approved by the committee and all other formalities compi ed with he found himself whirling round an in significant unit in the vortex of the money market of the world there un der the guidance of his father fathers s friend he was instructed in the mysteries of bulling and of bearing in the strange usages of change in the intricacies of carrying over and of transferring he learned to know where to place his clients money which of the jobbers would make a price in new zealanda Zea lands and which would touch nothing but american tails rails which might be trusted and which shunned all this and much more he mastered and to such purpose that he soon began to prosper to retain the clients who had been recommended to him and to attract fresh ones 13 t the work was never bongen al he had inherited from his father his love of the air of haaven his affection for a manly and matui natural al existence to act as middle man bet veen the pursuer of wealth and the wealth which he pursued or to stand as a human barometer register ing the rise and fall of the great mam main mon pressure in the markets was not tl e work for which providence had placed those broad shoulders and strong limbs upon his well knit frame his ark cark c open face too with his straight grecian nose well opened brown eyes and round black curled head were all those of a man who wap was fashioned kor achile physical work meanwhile he wag popular with his fellow brokers re specter by his clients and beloved at home but his spirit was restless within him and his mind chafed unceasingly against his surroundings do you know W lly ily said mrs hay denver one evening as she stood be hind her husband s chair with her hand apon his shoulder I 1 think sometimes that harold is not quite happy he looks happy the young rascal answered the admiral pointing w th his daae itilia racket as she emphasized I 1 er remarks and the doctor I 1 with slanting head bead and little nods of agreement against the rails tails at the near end liar har old was leaning in his flannels talking to the two sisters who stood listening to him with their long dark shadows streaming down the lawn behind them the girls were dressed alike in darl skirts with light pink tennis blouses and pink bands on their straw hats so that as they stood with the soft red of the setting sun their faces clara demure and quiet ida misch lev ous and daring it was a group which might have pleased the eye of a more exacting critic than the old sailor yes he looks happy mother he re heated with a chuckle it was not so long ago since it was mas you and I 1 who were standing like that and I 1 don t remember that we were very unhappy either it was croquet in our milne and the ladies had not reefed in their skirts quite so taut what year would it bea be just before the commission of the penel ope mrs hay denver ran her fingers through ils 1 is grizzled hair it n as when you came bach back in the antelope just be tore fore you got your step ah ali the old antelope what a clip per she was she could sail two points nearer the wind than anything of her in the service you remember her mother you say her come into ply mouth bay wasn gasn t she a beauty 9 she was indeed dear but when I 1 say that I 1 think that harold la Is not happy I 1 mean in his dally daily life has it never struck kou you how thoughtful he la Is at times and how absent in love perhaps the young dog he seems mohave to have found snug moorings now at any rate I 1 think that it Is very likely that you are right willy answered the mother seriously but which of them 9 I 1 cannot tell well they are very charming girls both of them but as long as he hangs in the wind between the two it cannot be serious serious after all the boy Is four and twenty and he lie made five hundred pounds last year he is better able to marry than I 1 was when I 1 was lieuten ant I 1 think that we can see which it Is now remarked the observant mother charles West mascott had ceased to knock the tennis balls about and was chatting with clara walker while ida and harold denver were still talking by the railing with little outbursts of laughter presently a fresh set was formed and doctor walker the odd man out came through the wicket gate and strolled up the garden walk good evening mrs hay denver said he raising his broad stray hat may I 1 come in ina good evening doctor pray do try one of these said the admiral holding out his cigar case they ar not bad I 1 got them on the mosquito coast I 1 was thinking of signaling to you but you seemed so very happy out there mrs West mascott is a very clever woman said the doctor lighting the cigar by the way you spoke about the mosquito coast just now did you see much of the hyla 1 when rhen you were out therea no such name on the list answered the seaman with decision there s the hydra a harbor defense turret ship but she never leaves the home waters the doctor laughed we live in two separate worlds said he the hyla Is the little green tree frog and beale has founded some of his views on pro upon the appearances of its nerve cells it Is a subject in which I 1 take an interest there were vermin of all sorts in the woods when I 1 have been on river ice I 1 have heard it at night like the engine boorn room when you are on the measured mile you cant can t sleep for the piping and croaking and chirping great scott what a woman that Is she was across the lawn in three jumps she would have made a captain of the foretop in the old days she Is a very remarkable wan A very cranky one A very sensible one in some things remarked mrs hay denver look at that now cried the ad miral with a lunge of his forefinger at the doctor sou lou mark my words walker if we don t look out that worn wom an will raise 9 mutiny with her preach ing here s my wife disaffected al ready and your girls will be no bet ter we must combine man or there a an end of all discipline no doubt she is a little excessive in her views said the doctor but in the main I 1 think as she does bravo doctor cried the lady what turned traitor to your sex we 11 court martial you as a deserter she Is quite right the professions are not open to women they are still too much circumscribed in their employments they are a feeble folk the women who have to work for their bread poor unorganized timid tak ing as a favor what they might demand as a right that Is why their case Is not more constantly before the pubic for if their cry tor for redress was as great as their grievance it would fill the world to the exclusion of all others it Is all N ery well tor for us to be courteous to the rich the refined those to whom life 19 1 already made easy it is a mere form a trick of manner if we are truly cc courteous we shall stoop to lift up struggling womanhood when she really needs our help heip when it is life and death to her whether she has it or not and fien vien to cant about it being being un unwomanly oan omally to work in the higher prof professions it 1 Is womanly enough to starve but un unworn wom anly to use the brains which god has 0 09 to given them Is it not a mr n contention the admiral chuckled tou you are like one of these phonographs walker bald said he you have had all this talked into you and now you are reeling it of again its it s rank mutiny en aery ery word of it for man has his duties and woman has hers but they are as separate as their natures are I 1 suppose that we shall have a woman hoisting her pennant on the flagship presently and tak ing ng command of the channel squadron well you have a woman on the throne taking command of the whole nation remarked his wife and every b ady Is agreed that she does it better than any of the men the admiral was somewhat staggered by this home thrust that s quite another thing said he you should come to their next apet ing I 1 am to take the chair I 1 have iu u promised mrs that I 1 will do so but it has turned chilly and it Is time that the girls were indoors good night I 1 shall look out for you after breakfast for our constitutional ad a 4 miral the old sailor looked after his friend with a twinkle in his eyes haw old Is he mother about fifty I 1 0 t ink and mrs 9 I 1 heard that she waa was forty three the admiral rubbed his hands bands and shook with amusement we 11 find one of these days that three and two make one said he bet you a new bon net on it mother CHAPTER IV A 8 ELL ULL ME v MISS walker you know how things should be what would you say was a good profession for a young man of 26 who has had no education worth speaking about and who Is not very quick by nature the speaker was charles and the time this same summer evening in the tennis ground though the shadows had fallen now pow and the same had been abandoned the girl glanced up at him amused and surprised do you mean yourself precisely gut but how could I 1 tell I 1 have no one to advise me I 1 believe that you could do it better than any one I 1 feel confidence in your opinion it Is very flattering she glanced up again at his earnest earnest questioning face with its saxon eyes and drooping flax en mustache in some doubt as to whether he might be joking on the con arary all his attention seemed to be concentrated upon her answer it depends so much upon what you can do you know I 1 do not know you sufficiently to be able to say what natu ral gifts you have they were walking slowly across the lawn in the direction of the house I 1 have none that Is to say none worth mentioning I 1 have no memory and I 1 am very slow but you are very strong oh it if that goes for anything I 1 can put up a hundred pound bar till further orders but what sort of a calling la is hat that some little joke about being called to the he bar flickered up in miss walker walkers a mind but her companion was in such obvious earnest that she stifled down her ler inclination to laugh TO BE 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