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Page 45
"This," Lord Belpher was saying in a determined voice, "settles it.
From now on Maud must not be allowed out of our sight."
Lord Marshmoreton spoke.
"I rather wish," he said regretfully, "I hadn't spoken about the
note. I only mentioned it because I thought you might think it
amusing."
"Amusing!" Lady Caroline's voice shook the furniture.
"Amusing that the fellow should have handed me of all people a
letter for Maud," explained her brother. "I don't want to get Maud
into trouble."
"You are criminally weak," said Lady Caroline severely. "I really
honestly believe that you were capable of giving the note to that
poor, misguided girl, and saying nothing about it." She flushed.
"The insolence of the man, coming here and settling down at the
very gates of the castle! If it was anybody but this man Platt who
was giving him shelter I should insist on his being turned out. But
that man Platt would be only too glad to know that he is causing us
annoyance."
"Quite!" said Lord Belpher.
"You must go to this man as soon as possible," continued Lady
Caroline, fixing her brother with a commanding stare, "and do your
best to make him see how abominable his behaviour is."
"Oh, I couldn't!" pleaded the earl. "I don't know the fellow. He'd
throw me out."
"Nonsense. Go at the very earliest opportunity."
"Oh, all right, all right, all right. Well, I think I'll be
slipping out to the rose garden again now. There's a clear hour
before dinner."
There was a tap at the door. Alice Faraday entered bearing papers,
a smile of sweet helpfulness on her pretty face.
"I hoped I should find you here, Lord Marshmoreton. You promised to
go over these notes with me, the ones about the Essex branch--"
The hunted peer looked as if he were about to dive through the
window.
"Some other time, some other time. I--I have important matters--"
"Oh, if you're busy--"
"Of course, Lord Marshmoreton will be delighted to work on your
notes, Miss Faraday," said Lady Caroline crisply. "Take this
chair. We are just going."
Lord Marshmoreton gave one wistful glance through the open window.
Then he sat down with a sigh, and felt for his reading-glasses.
CHAPTER 10.
Your true golfer is a man who, knowing that life is short and
perfection hard to attain, neglects no opportunity of practising
his chosen sport, allowing neither wind nor weather nor any
external influence to keep him from it. There is a story, with an
excellent moral lesson, of a golfer whose wife had determined to
leave him for ever. "Will nothing alter your decision?" he says.
"Will nothing induce you to stay? Well, then, while you're packing,
I think I'll go out on the lawn and rub up my putting a bit."
George Bevan was of this turn of mind. He might be in love; romance
might have sealed him for her own; but that was no reason for
blinding himself to the fact that his long game was bound to suffer
if he neglected to keep himself up to the mark. His first act on
arriving at Belpher village had been to ascertain whether there was
a links in the neighbourhood; and thither, on the morning after his
visit to the castle and the delivery of the two notes, he repaired.
At the hour of the day which he had selected the club-house was
empty, and he had just resigned himself to a solitary game, when,
with a whirr and a rattle, a grey racing-car drove up, and from it
emerged the same long young man whom, a couple of days earlier, he
had seen wriggle out from underneath the same machine. It was
Reggie Byng's habit also not to allow anything, even love, to
interfere with golf; and not even the prospect of hanging about the
castle grounds in the hope of catching a glimpse of Alice Faraday
and exchanging timorous words with her had been enough to keep him
from the links.
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