BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume

was something in the steady burning gaze of the German that mastered her at once.

      She was a tall slender girl, very beautiful, with masses of dark hair coiled under a coquettish hat set daintily on her well-shaped head. Her eyes flashed with a mixture of fun and mischief, while her rather large mouth displayed a row of very white teeth when she smiled. She looked charming in her dark blue riding-habit and white gloves, with a linen collar at her throat caught by a dainty brooch. She was an extremely self-possessed and self-willed young woman. Her mother died when she was quite a baby, and being neglected by her father, who was too busy with his library to attend to her, the education she received was of a loose and somewhat desultory kind. Sometimes she would learn, and astonish everybody with the rapidity of her progress. At other times she would refuse to open a single book, and alternately teased and delighted her friends by her fantastic moods. She was a splendid rider, and most of her childhood’s days were spent in scampering about the country with her Shetland pony and Jack.

      Jack, otherwise Lord Dulchester, was the eldest son of the Earl of Chesham, whose estate was next to that of Sir Gilbert Harkness. Jack and Philippa were always together, and the wild young lady followed Jack into whatever scrapes he chose to lead her. She copied Jack’s manners and speech, and consequently became proficient in slang. But the longest lane has a turning, and at length Sir Gilbert awoke to the fact that something must be done with his erratic offspring. He wrote to his married sister in London, and she promptly suggested a French boarding-school. So one morning Miss Philippa was violently seized and sent into exile; at the same time her companion in mischief, went to Eton. When Miss Harkness returned from her Gallic exile, she found Jack unaltered, and he found her as jolly as ever (so he put it). Their positions, however, were changed, and instead of Philippa following Jack, Jack followed Philippa. He admired her as being the only girl who could ride straight across country, and discuss horses in a proper way. Besides he had known her such a long time that he had had plenty of opportunity of seeing any faults in her, and he had seen none. Having come to the conclusion that she was “the jolliest girl he had ever met,” he rode over one morning and promptly asked her to marry him. Philippa as promptly refused, politely telling him not to be an idiot. But Lord Dulchester persisted, and —ultimately, Miss Harkness—who was really in love accepted him, and they were engaged. All the county ladies talked of her as “that misguided girl,” and lamented that Sir Gilbert had not married again in order to give one of the female sex an opportunity to initiate Philippa into the intricacies of good breeding. They were horrified at her fast ways and strong expressions, which even her French education could not eradicate. It was rumoured that she had actually smoked a whole cigarette, and Philippa had laughingly acknowledged the fact to a lady who questioned her about it. When she secured in Lord Dulchester the matrimonial prize of the county, you may be sure the ladies loved her none the more. They accepted her as an unpleasant fact, and hoped that she would improve in time. The male sex liked Philippa because she was handsome, and said witty things about her neighbours; but it was generally acknowledged that she had a wild eye in her head, and would need breaking in, a task which they did not think Lord Dulchester capable of.

      That gentleman was a tawny-haired, clean-limbed son of Anak, who stood six feet, and could ride, shoot, and box better than any man in the county.

      He was good-looking; had a title, but no brains; and he adored Philippa.

      Miss Harkness withdrew her eyes from the remarkable face before her with an uneasy laugh, and introduced Lord Dulchester.

      “You will stay to dinner, I hope, Professor?” said Sir Gilbert.

      The Professor bowed, whilst Philippa hurried away to change her dress.

      Jack followed soon to make himself a little decent, for the dress in which a man has done a hard day’s hunting is certainly not the most presentable for dining.

      The Professor, left alone with Sir Gilbert, looked round and thought: “I wonder where the ‘Giraldus’ can be?”

      Chapter IV.

       In the Drawing-Room

       Table of Contents

      “Do you, believe, sir, in metempsychosis?

       Of course you don’t, but I can tell you, sir,

       He was a serpent ere he was a man.”

      There is no more charming hour in the whole day than the dinner hour, especially after a hard day’s hunting. At least so Lord Dulchester thought. In spite of his splashed dress (which he had made as presentable as he could), he felt a sweet, lazy kind of happiness as he sat down at the dinner-table.

      The white cloth, the hothouse flowers, the gleaming and antique silver and delicate china, all assembled under the soft light of rose-coloured lamps, made up a very pleasant picture, and Lord Dulchester felt at peace with all mankind. Beside him sat Philippa, dark and handsome in her dinner dress, vivaciously discussing the day’s sport.

      At the head of the table sat Sir Gilbert, holding an animated conversation on books with the Professor, who was seated near him.

      Dulchester had taken a great dislike to the German and set him down in his own mind as a charlatan, although what reason he had for so doing Heaven only knows.

      Perhaps the silvery fluency of the foreigner’s conversation, together with the mesmeric glances of his wonderful eyes, helped him to the conclusion.

      At any rate, the presence of the Professor was to him the one discordant element of the evening.

      “I must apologize for my dress, Sir Gilbert,” he said. “I wanted to go home and change it, but Phil would not let me.”

      “Of course not,” retorted that young lady with a laugh, “you would not have returned till midnight. And I am sure you need not apologize so much,” she went on, merrily; “you have done the same thing many times before, and on each occasion you have excused yourself in the same manner. Why don’t you practise what you preach?”

      “Because you won’t let me,” said Jack with a laugh, pouring himself out a glass of wine.

      “You had good sport to-day?” asked the Professor, fixing his piercing eyes on Jack.

      “Slashing,” replied that young man enthusiastically, setting down his glass, which was half way to his mouth, in order to give more freedom to his eloquence. “You should have seen the spin the fox led us. We caught him this side of Masterton’s Mill. There was one beautiful hedge and ditch which half the field refused, but Miss Harkness cleared it like a bird, and I followed. I think we were neck and neck, Phil, across the next field,” he added, addressing that young lady who was listening with flashing eyes.

      “Rather,” she answered, vivaciously; “and, by Jove! Jack, what a smash old Squire Darner came.”

      “Right into the middle of the ditch.”

      “He would insist on giving me the lead, and I did laugh when I saw him flying through the air like a fat goose.”

      “Serve him right,” growled Jack, who did not think anyone had a right to give Miss Harkness a lead but himself. “He’s too old for that sort of thing.”

      “Oh, yes. You will knock off hunting when you reach his age, eh, Jack?” said Philippa, sarcastically.

      “Well, I won’t ride so many stone, at any rate,” retorted Jack, evasively, applying himself vigorously to his dinner to prevent the possibility of a reply.

      Philippa laughed, and then began talking about some newly-imported mare with miraculous powers of endurance and speed ascribed to her.

      Jack responded enthusiastically, and their conversation became so “horsey” as to be unintelligible, except to a Newmarket trainer, or to one of Whyte-Melville’s heroes.

      Meanwhile, the two scholars were holding an equally mystical conversation in the higher branches of knowledge on the other side of the table.

      At