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"Mr Bulson would like to speak to you, ma'am."

complexion, and asked what what is it?" as the butler my Christian name was. I entered. told him I couldn't come without a chaperon," she laughed at the remembrance; "he was immensely relieved when I took my departure."

"And the third was Mr Wendern?"

Mrs Berwick nodded. "He received me with a deference for which I could have kissed him; unfortunately it wasn't possible. He explained that he wanted a lady to look after his house, order dinner, and able to head a table if necessary, and that he liked things done so that they could be seen with the naked eye. He said nothing about salary," Mrs Berwick added regretfully; she was rather enjoying the confidences to her sister now that she was well into them.

"And you didn't?"

"I felt that even to mention it would imply that I belonged to a lower set than the one to which he evidently thought I belonged."

"Still, I should have given him a hint

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"Let me arrange my own affairs, Maria. I fear I shall not be here much longer, for he is devoted to Miss Fiffer, a great American heiress. She lives four doors off and they meet every day; I believe they only took the house to be near hira. If he marries her I shall be dispensed with, but meanwhile I shall gain nothing by worrying him; only to be sent away perhaps, to advertise again in the daily papersthe door opened, opened, she pressed a start, "Oh, Rogers,

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"Mr Bulson ?-let me seeoh yes, the wine merchant, ask him to come in." She turned hurriedly to her sister when Rogers had gone, "You must go, dear."

"Of course, I quite understand," they kissed each other; "remember our new address, 19 Cranberry Gardens, Hammersmith."

"Indeed I will. Good-bye, dear. I'll do what I can, you know I always play up if it's possible."

"I know you do." One sister went meekly out while the other sister sat down by the writing-table and became absorbed in the household books till the door opened again.

Mr Bulson was a gentlemanlike man with a tall hat which he carried in his hand, he wore a frock-coat and grey trousers; his appearance suggested church on Sunday as well as commercial activity on week-days.

"Good-morning, madam,” he

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"Paid? It will be paid when Mr Wendern has time to remember it."

"We have sent him a good many letters on the subject," he said firmly.

"Which was very unwise of you. You have lost a most excellent customer," her tone was almost confidential.

"I should be sorry to think that."

"But you have-" she shook her head regretfully.

"Oh well-" Then an idea evidently struck him. He looked round and hesitated. "Could you, my dear madam, in strict confidence, of course, tell us anything about Mr Wendern's position?"

"Position?" she looked up with a bewildered expression; he wondered whether it was innocence or bluff.

"Perhaps you will allow me to sit down for a moment?" He felt that the interview was becoming interesting.

She nodded; he took the chair on the other side of the writing-table; his manner was still deferential; but she knew perfectly that he had made inquiries as to her position in the house. "I understand that you are Mr Wendern's adviser and manager here. I need hardly say that to a firm like ours immediate payment of an account is of no consequence; but we want to be assured that it is safe."

"A millionaire's account!" Mr Bulson looked round again. "A millionaire doesn't live as quietly as he does now, for he has drawn in this year. We very seldom see his name

in the newspapers-at fashionable parties for instance."

"He is tired of them. He goes to the opera a good deal, he is always out, and-" she stopped, for she had not the least idea where he went. "He likes the opera," she added lamely.

"I saw him there the other night with an extremely handsome young lady - and her mother, I presume. But I made inquiries and found it was their box, not his."

"They have taken one for the season; it was Mrs Fiffer's box-her daughter is an immense heiress," she said significantly.

"Humph-I see, but-I have an idea that the reason Mr Wendern does not entertain now is that he feels the necessity for retrenchment, the tiredness may be only an

excuse."

Mrs Berwick was surprised and a little hurt. "He said, quite lately, that he wanted to live as a man should who was well-off, but with only Colonial money. I think he dislikes ostentation."

"May I take it that your own presence here is a proof that he is at any rate welloff?"

She gave a quick nod that reassured her listener. He took her to be more worldly than she was; her clear eyes seemed to him to be accustomed to gather in main chances. "Thank you. He rose to go. sorry to lose his "It would be gravely agreed.

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"We should be customa pity," she "I feel sure

that you will get a cheque when he remembers to write it, or is reminded at the right moment." She looked at him again.

"Thank you, madam." He stopped when he was half-way to the door; his manner became a shade more familiar. "If there is any friend of yours, or " as if he were afraid of being untactful"any charitable case in which you are interested, we should be delighted if you would allow us to send a little champagne, or a dozen of invalid port, to any one who has gained your sympathy."

"How very thoughtful of you, Mr Bulson," she said, "but I shouldn't like to take advantage of your kindness." "The kindness would be on your side." He waited: little smile came to his eyes.

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"There is a poor soul I'm much interested in. She has a delicate chest and suffers dreadfully from bronchitis. She lives at 19 Cranberry Gardens, Hammersmith. I feel sure a little champagne would be a blessing to her, would prolong her life perhaps

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"I'm sure it would." "She likes it very dry." "It shall be sent." He took out a note-book. "19 Cranberry Gardens, Mrs Rigg, very dry. It shall be attended to at once.'

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"It's very kind of you." She held out her hand. He shook it cordially. "That poor thing is so delicate."

"I hope it will do her good." He departed brisk and smiling.

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She could have groaned with relief as he shut the door. it amused her too, for after all, on a smaller scale, this was only the situation of the first days of her marriage. She had rather liked putting off the duns then: it was a new experience, and she took it to be characteristic of the higher social plane on which her husband had placed her. Later, when she had been a drudge, a hungry dreading creature hiding from the man whose habits were in 8 measure a revelation to her, she had played the game of outwitting creditors with desperation instead of amusement. "I don't believe this billet will last

long," she said to herself. "I wonder whether he is a millionaire or a beggar or an impostor?" She shook her head at the last word, as if to discount it. "If only that backwoodsman would come again, I could find out."

The "backwoodsman," as she called him, had appeared on the scene a few days before-one Joe Parker. Mrs Berwick gathered that he had known Wendern out in Australia. A little talk with him might set her doubts at rest. She had only spoken to him for a minute. Wendern had introduced her. She had

made some remark about the weather and discreetly vanished. The friends evidently liked each other. They went out together, and when Wendern returned alone some hours later he remarked that Parker would turn up again in a day or two. A rough diamond, but somehow she felt him to be a real one. She awaited his second visit with interest: it was a detail that she had discovered his eyes to be very blue, and had seen in them, when he looked at her, an expression that she felt to be pleasant admiration or friendliness.

CHAPTER II.

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he looked on at them with He an air of not much interested surprise, almost as if he were making an experiment he did not find exciting. They were done well, but carelessly managed; of the applause that was heaped on them, the eagerness to come to them, he appeared to be unconscious, or, if told of it, amused and incredulous. There was curious fascination about him. He was three-and-thirty perhaps, fairly tall, silent and reserved, with sometimes an almost uncanny look in his soft dark eyes and a smile that came seldom, but that gave evidence of the charm and almost simplicity of his nature. He seemed to be looking on at life, a little mystified at what he saw, to be expecting, waiting, for some meaning to develop itself, of

Every one had met George Wendern five years ago. was supposed to be a millionaire, and had come from the other side of the world. But little besides was known of him. He never talked of himself-nor of anything much as a rule-but it was wonderful how expressive people found his silences: women did especially, and ran after him trying to beguile him to their dinner-parties and their weekends in the country. He went everywhere for season, at first curiously and then reluctantly, arriving late and leaving early, till the time came when he refused most things for fear of forgetting them later. During his first year in London he frequently gave parties himself, occasionally he gave one in the second year; but it was noticed that

his own share in it at any rate, and, till it came, to be holding himself back, reserving some latent force.

the prospectus of the Bangor Estates Syndicate appeared. He flourished about it a good deal, and persuaded Wendern not only to put many thousands into it, but to become its managing director in England, as he himself was in Australia. Wendern resented the one or two titled guineapigs whose names were mixed up with it; but Lant told him this was necessary in England, and it never occurred to him, since he trusted his friends as a matter of course, to doubt Lant's good faith. Lant put

were

The queer thing was that Wendern appeared first under the auspices of Christopher Lant. Lant was a vulgar man-stout, easy, and goodnatured, immensely rich, or reputed to be, who was taken on his face value when he suddenly came from nowhere, a man who knew everybody, but nobody knew how; and went everywhere, no one knew why -for a time. He lent money to men if they gave him a chance, sent flowers and operaboxes to women, chocolates and mechanical toys to children, entertained lavishly, subscribed to charities, and just as it was beginning to be said that he was a speculator, a Company promoter, extravagant in small sums while he harvested big ones for his own benefit, he introduced George Wendern, who was at least ten years his junior, and had an altogether different personality. People wondered how the two men came to be friends, and were told that they had known each other in the colonies; but it was remarked that Wendern's manner was always a little distant, as if the intimacy, if remember anything, his people it could be called one, were forced, and at the elder man's ostentatious parties, his dinners, theatre - goings, and suppers, he was never to be

seen.

Just before Lant went away -he was of the type that

always discreetly goes away

all sorts of people into the Syndicate, and some who knew Wendern followed them; for if Wendern had no intimate friends, many people attracted by him-even those who only came accidentally into contact with him felt his curious magnetism. He was rather amused at being "boss" of the English office. Money had never been a difficulty to him: it had come and gone so easily, and come again with never any embarrassment to him, that the responsibility of managing it, of having to do with money belonging to other people, and of its actual necessity to himself, never occurred to him. Once in the long years ago, before he could

had been poor; but it hadn't mattered: poverty under a blue sky, where necessities are few and luxuries as scarce as undesired, and good fellowship a matter of course, is a different thing from poverty in a city.

He took a suite of rooms at

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