A Lover of the Day. A novel

Front matter

AEABELLA KENEALY'S NOVELS. SOME MEN ARE SUCH GENTLEMEN Crown Svo, cloth, Gs. Fifth Edition. Academy— ' We take up a book by Misa Arabella Kenealy confidently expecting to be amused, and in her latest work we are not disappointed. The story is so brightly written that our interest is never allowed to flag. The heroine, Lois Clinton, is sweet and womanly. . . . The tale is told with spirit and vivacity, and shows no little skill in its descriptive passages. ' Pall Mall Gazette— ' A book to be read breathlessly from beginning to end. It is decidedly original. ... its vivid Interest. The picture of the girl is admirably drawn. The style is bright and easy. ' Literary World — ' A really good story, original, well written and strong. A really excellent and engaging story. The materials are rare, and, we must admit, ideal. . . . can be read with interest and enjoyment. ' Daily Chronicle— ' Miss Kenealy has original ideas, a nice faculty of literary expression. . . .

Her description of the old house where dwelt her strange young heroine, is quite admirable. . . . There is a quaintness and an air of romance about the whole story, which are very pleasant to note and to remember. ' Truth — ' Its heroine is at once original and charming. ' DR JANET OF HARLEY STREET Crown Svo, cloth, 2s. 6d. Picture Boards, 2s. This Book ran through Six Editions in the Six Shilling form. Daily Chronicle— ' It is a clever book, and well worth reading; it can outstrip the ordinary novel by many knots per day (to pursue the meta phor), and it may make one or two people think who are unaccustomed to that exercise. Miss Kenealy has imagined an interesting character, and realised her vividly. ' Pall Mall Gazette— ' In "Dr Janet of Harley Street," Dr Arabella Kenealy has shown that the art of writing lively fiction is not the least of her many accomplishments.

Moreover, she has achieved the rare dis tinction of producing a novel which is didactic and not dull. Miss Kenealy has a quick sense of humour, and a lively faculty of observation, and her style is vivid and effective. ' THE HONOURABLE MRS SPOOR Crown Svo, cloth, 6s. Fourth Edition. Black and White— ' Her latest novel has advanced her to the front rank of lady novelists. ' The Daily Chronicle— ' A clever story. The most powerful piece of work that Miss Kenealy has done.' The Pall Mall Gazette— ' This powerful story. . . . brilliantly achieved. Her style is, as always, graceful and easy, and her character sketches are excellent and humorous. ' DIGBY, LONG & CO , Publishers, London A LOVER OF THE DAY. DIGBY'S POPULAR NOVEL SERIES Crown Svo, handsome cloth, price 2s. 6d. per Vol. Each Book contains 320 pp., and is printed on superior paper from new type.

Chapter I. The Beginning Of It

"Patrice ! Patrice ! Patrice ! " "Coming, Papa! Coming! Coming!" The replies were given as quickly and emphatically as the calls, but the elderly, slightly irascible, and impatient gentleman who uttered the latter, did not wait to hear if there was any response to them or not. "Patrice! Where is the girl? Why the devil doesn't she answer? Mary, where is Miss Patrice? — here, one of you servants! Where are you? Never in the way when you're wanted! Where is Miss Patrice? I—" "Here! at your elbow!" said a laughing voice, and Captain Kelly looked round from a standing desk, upon which a heterogeneous mass of letters and papers were lying, to see the bright young face of his step-child, Patrice Laugherne, smiling up at him. "I only wanted to tell you that I have asked young Sholto Graham to dine here to-night, and to— a — Where on earth has that receipted bill of Jones's gone? — Oh! yes, and to tell you that I've ordered a brace of teal to supplement the Welsh mutton, and if Cook makes a mess of them as she did last week, out of the house she goes to-morrow.

Mind you tell her?" "I'll remember; and here's Jones's bill on the floor at your feet," Patrice said unconcernedly. For fifteen years of her life she had been accustomed to Captain Kelly, his impatient bursts of fussy harmless fury, his inveterate habit of mislaying every thing in his possession, his threats to instantly dismiss any servant who might commit the possible offence which at the moment seemed most grievous in his sight, and his genuine kindness of feeling for all created things. " That's right ! thought I should put my hand on it presently. That's what comes of having a place for everything and everything in its place ; isn't it, Patrice, my darling?" "Yes, Papa, you always like me to be orderly, don't you ? Shall I shut the window ? I'm afraid you're in a draught." " A draught ! my dear child, there's not a breath of — Confound it ! what have I done with —Where is my a — ?

Look about, Patrice; I put some rough notes I made on that meteor we saw last night, out of my hand a moment ago, and now where the dickens they can have gone, I can't conceive." " Here they are, blown out on the window-sill. I saw them flutter out, that's why Isaid there wasadraught." "Not the ghost of a draught, not a breath of wind stirring ! I want to show these notes to young Graham. I was telling him of the extraordinary appearance we observed in the sky last night, and he was very much interested, very much interested indeed. A very able and intelligent young fellow that. I told him you saw it too, and he remarked that your corroborative evidence would be invaluable if he works it up for a paper in a scientific journal." " You know, dear Dad, that what we saw was in the direction of the Crystal Palace?"

"Exactly so, Patrice, exactly so. In a south easterly direction, looked at from the terrace." "And there were fireworks at the Crystal Palace last night/' cried Patrice, opening the door as she spoke, and vanishing from the reluctantly cleared sight of her step-father, in a burst of hearty, unre strained laughter, that spoke well for the free and friendly relations that existed between them. "What a shame of Mr. Graham to pretend to believe in dear old father's meteor ! He must have known all the time that it was the Crystal Palace fireworks that we saw!" the girl said to herself, as she walked up to her own room to look out the prettiest home dinner-dress in her possession. "I consider he has gained his invitation to dine here to-night under false pretences," she went on smilingly to her reflection in the looking-glass, as she com menced combing out and rearranging her pretty, curly, nut-brown fringe.

There was not much anger in her heart against the deceiver who had diplomatically swallowed Cap tain Kelly's meteor and refrained from all reference to the fireworks. There are very few girls whose sense of moral rectitude is too strong to allow them to look leniently upon the perpetrator of a harmless fraud, when that fraud has been perpetrated for the sake of seeing more of themselves. Patrice was not one of these rare ones ! She had quite condoned Sholto Graham's mendacious attitude towards her step-father in re the meteor, long before the hour which found him seated at the faultless little pink and yellow round dining-table, whereat she presided with the gay joy in her own happiness, which it is not the portion of one woman in a thousand to revel in for long. Sholto Graham was observant, and something in the arrangement of the table told him that it was the well-thought out work of the graceful, grey-eyed, young lady on his left.

There was nothing slurred or unfinished about the winding lengths of palest yellow and pink soft silks which were twined round the silver candlesticks, and the loose bunches of Marechal Niel and La France roses. There was not a single neglected detail in her dress which matched the two shades of roses in colour, or — as he found as the dinner went on — in the dainty little banquet. A little soup clear and pale as dry sherry, but distinctly flavoured with the extracts of delicate meat and choice vegetables. Salmon cutlets with Tartare sauce, a tiny joint of Welsh mutton, the teal roasted to a turn, faintly blushing under their crisp brown skins, and served with no other sauce than lemon and Nepal pepper; a chocolate pudding, followed by oranges, bananas and mangoes. "Charming little dinner!

The old gentleman must shellout liberally for housekeeping ! " the young Scotch War-Office clerk thought, for he knew not how very little 'little dishes,' such as he had dined on, cost. He thought the little household charming too, and laid himself out to please the old master and the young mistress of it, with all his clever power. He had gained a slight insight into the character of the latter while she was entertaining him in the drawing-room previous to Captain Kelly's appearance. "I have heard that Papa has told you about the meteor, which turns out to have been fireworks at the Palace," she began, as soon as she had shaken hands with him. " Captain Kelly spoke to me this morning about the strange appearance he witnessed in the sky last night," Graham replied guardedly and gravely. "And you knew about the fireworks when he spoke to you of the meteor?"

Graham smiled acquiescence. "Why didn't you tell him at once what it was that caused the me — the appearance in the sky ? You ought to have told him as you knew, and you did know, for he's far, far, far too good to be fooled by any one," she said reproachfully. " Miss Laugherne, how can you imagine — " "Hark! he's coming. You must out with it at once about the fireworks ; he shall not go on thinking the meteor was real and you sincere !" So Sholto Graham, though he thought it extremely unimportant, freed his host's mind in a minute or two from the mists of misapprehension through which the latter was groping after the meteor. "Have I been good and obedient?" Sholto Graham whispered to his hostess as he took her into the dining-room. "You have been moderately good now, but the goodness is nothing in comparison with the badness which made you promise to use his notes as a basis for your scientific paper !"

"You know how to be very severe. Do relent! If I hadn't taken that meteor under my protection this morning I should not be here now !" The sudden questioning gravity which was a char acteristic of her face, overspread it now! "Are you glad that you're here now?" "Can you ask? I am more than glad!" "Why?" " Because you are here," he whispered, as he bent down sideways to pat a blonde, bland dachshund who seemed to be travelling on his knees, so benifi cently had breeding bent his legs. "Bite him, Fritz; he doesn't mean it any more than he did about the notes about the meteor," Patrice laughed out lightly, as she too bent down to give a welcoming pat to Fritz. That Mr. Graham's hand touched hers for a moment must have been an accident, she was sure. She forgave him the inadvertent contact because he had been so promptly obedient in promising to disabuse Captain Kelly's mind about the cherished meteor.

And, after all, his deceit in the matter had been harmless and pardon able. His motive for making believe to be interested in the notes concerning the meteor, which he knew all the time was not a meteor but only fireworks, was a mixture of kindly tolerance for Captain Kelly's fad, and desire to see more of herself. She took this view of the matter, and forgave him very fully. If there was one thing more than another on which Captain Kelly prided himself, it was upon the way in which he had kept his heart, mind and sympathies, with all the new advances the world was making hour by hour, green ! He had taken to Sholto Graham the promising, wide-awake young magazinist, at first because Graham looked every inch a soldier, and afterwards because Graham affably kept him up to date with the news of the world in a nut-shell every evening when they travelled together underground from Charing Cross down to Bayswater.

In an airy, sketchy way Sholto Graham had given the excitable, easily impressed old naval man to understand that he (Graham) was not only ' on the Press', but that he was a power therein. In an equally airy and sketchy way Captain Kelly had flaunted this impression before the mental eyes of his pretty step-daughter. "Mark my words, Patrice, Graham holds a pen that may strengthen a dynasty or shatter a ministry," Cap tain Kelly observed to Patrice more than once. And Pa trice who cared little for dynasties, less for ministries, butsomething already for Sholto Graham, replied — " If I thought as much of him as you do, Dad, I would rather hear of his building up something good, than of all the shattering that may be done. What dynasty is he smiling upon?" Captain Kelly had the great gift of a steady and thoughtful gaze when he was thinking about anything particular.

He brought this special gaze to bear upon his step-daughter whenever she got a bit beyond him. He brought it to bear on her when she asked him "What dynasty Graham was smiling on?" In the little drawing-room, after dinner that first night of his dining with Captain Kelly, Sholto Graham had it all his own way. There was no other guest ; the old sailor was very sleepy after his coffee, and Miss Laugherne noticing this, took the whole burden of entertaining this stranger upon herself. " Papa always smokes here after nine o' clock — if he isn't asleep. He is asleep this evening, so you may take his smoking place and have a cigarette if you like, Mr. Graham," she said, as she looked up at him from the plumply elastic depths of a well cushioned chair. " How well you understand the needs of that poor lower animal, man, Miss Laugherne.

A cigarette is a necessary of life to me after dinner, but smoked in your presence here by your permission it — " "I know, I know," she interrupted hastily, "two or three dear old women whom I know in the Harrow Road, say the same thing to me in different words when I take them snuff." "Snuff!" "Yes, snuff! Snuff is one of the necessaries of their poor dull lives, you know, so I take it to them. If smoking a cigarette in my drawing-room is one of the necessaries of your poor dull life, you may certainly smoke it." He put down his cigarette.

Chapter II

"the luckiest fellow living/' "You live in lodgings, don't you?" " Yes — in rooms," he corrected hesitatingly. He had half a mind to speak of them as chambers, for he wanted Miss Laugherne to think of him as being on a slightly different social platform to the ordinary Government clerks. "And where are your rooms, Mr. Graham?" The interest she was taking in him was gratifying, but he could have wished that it would not lead her to question him about his local habitation. " I'm in Westbourne Terrace at present." "Oh! The Paddington end or the Park end?" she asked. " The Paddington end. I am going to leave them in a week or two. It's too far out of town altogether for a fellow who does press-work." "Do you write for any of the big Dailies? for the Times or the Telegraph? or do you only write for the weeklies?"

"Only for the Weeklies ! —that's a very disparaging way of putting it. The first journalists of the day are proud to be on the staff of the World and Truth, to say nothing of a dozen other high-class weekly-papers." " Yes, yes ! but are you on the staff of the World or Truth, or any of the other high-class weeklies?" "Not at present," he answered curtly. "Do forgive me for being curious about it, but you're the only literary man I've ever met, and I should like to know what you write in, so that I might read what you say, and have the delightful feeling of knowing the writer of the article." " I throw off little things by the dozen and hardly know where they go," he said carelessly; "they get absorbed in a dozen directions ; they are really not worth your taking the trouble to read. These ephemeral things, you know, die with the day with whose doings they deal."

"You must work very hard? all day at the Wrj: Office and half the night writing for the Press, I suppose ? " she said admiringly. " Oh ! it's nothing when you're used to it," he said airily, disclaiming any special merit for his industry. "The official work is poisonously dull; turning out the other stuff is a refreshing change from it." "My father has been reading something of yours, he is quite enthusiastic about your writing. He says " The Luckiest Fellow living." 13 you hold a pen that could strengthen a dynasty or shatter a ministry." "I can only wish as he holds these flattering views that he was either an Editor or a Publisher," he laughed out ; but though he laughed and seemed to lightly regard Captain Kelly's flattering tribute, he liked the old gentleman better than he had ever liked him before.

"I suppose, as Papa says that of your writing, that you deal mostly with politics?" "I don't care a— hang about them," he confessed candidly. "I take much more interest in a new play or show of any kind than I do in the fate of nations. Do you often go to the theatres?" She shook her head dolefully. "So seldom that I feel terribly out of it when we're dining out sometimes, and new plays and popular actors and actresses are being talked about. Papa does not care to turn out after dinner, and as he always goes to sleep before the first act is over, it is cruel to drag him to a theatre." "That's hard luck on you," he said compassionately. "Have you no one else to take you, no aunts or cousins?" " I have very few relations, and none of them live in London. My very own people — my own father's family — are all in Ireland, they know little of and care less for me."

"If they knew anything of you they couldn't help caring a great deal for you," he said warmly, and from his position of repose against the mantelpiece, he looked down with eager admiration into her upturned sensitive face. It occurred to them simul taneously how exceedingly good-looking the other was. He, tall, well-built, strong and lithe as a grey hound ; she, fair and feminine, lissom and graceful, with such a look of earnest interest in the depths of her deep grey eyes as he had never seen in any woman's eyes before. "When I move into new quarters I am going to get my sister to stay with me, and then you must let me introduce her to you, and we'll do some theatres together. Will you?" "I shall like it intensely, if your sister agrees to the plan." "My sister agrees to most things that I propose.

She's not half a bad girl." "Where does she Uve? is she like you? have you only one sister?" "Only one. She lives in Edinburgh with an uncle. She's not half a bad girl, not a bit like me. She's a regular yellow-haired Scotch lassie." "Pretty?" "Um— a — it's hard for a fellow to say or indeed to know whether his sister is pretty or not. At any rate, nobody of any importance has come wooing her " The Luckiest Fellow living." 15 yet. I hope she's not going to turn out an old maid on my hands." "Are you very fond of her?" "Oh yes, she's a very nice girl. Thinks an awful lot of me ; always bothering me to strain every nerve to make a name for myself. I tell her it's easy for her to talk to me of straining nerves while she does nothing but sit down comfortably at home, doing nothing but amuse herself."

" I like her for being ambitious for you," Patrice said thoughtfully; "it must be such an incen tive to you to work, to feel that there is some one who loves you, wishing and longing for your success." He shrugged his shoulders. Then suddenly he stood erect, and a wave of deep feeling swept over his face. "It would be an incentive for me to strain every nerve and no mistake if you were that someone," he said impetuously, and just then Captain Kelly woke up. "Why, the fire's nearly out! my feet are stone cold. What on earth has Mary been about ? Ring the bell, will you, Graham? Patrice tell Mary to bring the tray in and get up the fire with some sticks. My dear fellow, I'm afraid I've been asleep for a few minutes. Why, bless my heart it's eleven o'clock ! Servants gone to bed, do you say, Patrice ?

I want some whisky and soda; you'll have some too, Graham?" "Thanks, the soda not the whisky." "I'll go and fetch it from the dining-room for you, Papa," Patrice said, springing up and making for the door, which was already opened for her by Sholto Graham. "Let me come and help you," he whispered, and without waiting for her answer, he followed her into the dining-room. "May I feel that you will take a little interest in me and my work ?" he muttered, as she collected the mate rials for composing Captain Kelly's evening draught. "I shall not be able to help doing it," she said simply, "but you'll succeed whether I take an interest in your success or not." "The success will be sweeter if you watch my struggles to attain it." "I shall watch." " May I bring you some magazines and papers to morrow ?

" " Let it be something that you have written yourself. Coming ! Papa, coming, coming, coming ! I can't find the lemon. Do take the tray in, Mr. Graham, and tell him I'm looking for the lemon." Her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling with the new found happiness, the first draught of which is more exhilarating than anything else on earth. He felt the potent fumes of the flattery her looks and man ner expressed, mounting to his brain. " The Luckiest Fellow living." 17 "I shall come to-morrow and ask you to honour a very large cheque that I shall draw on your interest in me," he whispered, and then he bent his head down till his lips touched her hair. "I love you," he said, so fervently that it was no wonder Patrice believed him. "Meet me to-morrow by the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, will you ?

" " No, you must come here ! " she said firmly ; and perhaps unreasonably, she felt a shade flatter in spirit than she had felt before he made this request. " Very well ; I'll call here at five," he said quickly, but there was a touch of annoyance in his tone and on his face. He was a young man, who did not like to be thwarted. Patrice read the annoyance clearly enough, and attributed it to his fearing that he would not have her all to himself the next day, as he would if she had gone to meet him by the Round Pond. It was only the natural and pardonable selfishness of a lover that made him look cross for a moment, she felt sure. The cloud lifted very quickly. By the time she followed him with the lemon he was talking and laughing merrily with the old naval man, who already liked the good-looking, frank, friendly, young fellow warmly.

Sholto Graham compounded the whisky and soda and lemon quite deftly for his host, doing it in a respectfully attentive way that was almost filial, Patrice felt. But he said no more words that night that were exclusively designed for her alone. Her refusal to meet him in Kensington Gardens had irritated him, and when Sholto Graham was irritated those about him knew it. However, when he said good-night to her he gave her a long reproachful look. So she went to bed, feeling happily certain that it was because he liked her so much that he had been a bit cross when she would not do as he asked her. When he called the next day at five, with the magazines and papers he had promised her, he was quite his own delightful, lively, amusing, unclouded self again ; and though he said no more definite words of love this day, he won upon her by his deferential, tender earnestness, more than he would have done by any display of prematurely eager ardour.

She began to feel proud of this man, who seemed so real and strong and self-controlled in his endeavours to get her to regard him. Her heart swelled with satisfaction when he was gone and her step-father spoke good words of him. She found herself recalling certain little tricks of manner which he had, and which she thought were charming in themselves, and more charming as being the outward expression of certain admirable inner qualities which went to the making up of the dear fellow he was. " The Luckiest Fellow living." 19 In short Patrice was going at a fair pace along the high-road to Love of the most confiding and devoted order. So the days went on for a month or two, and still he came daily, and still her interest in him deepened. Even Captain Kelly began to think that the pleasant young fellow who passed so many hours cheerfully in his, the Captain's society, must have some other motive in coming than the plausible one of bringing him the latest news.

When first this idea dawned on him, his straightforward blue eyes filled with emotional moisture, and his weather reddened old face paled as he realised that this meant losing Patrice ! But he soon put this evil consideration for himself behind him, and only grew impatient for the daughter of his heart to confide in him. The servants discussed the situation freely. Cook had lived with Patrice's mother before the latter had married Captain Kelly, and therefore naturally felt that the matter concerned her more closely than it did the others, who were only of ten and eight years' standing respectively in the house. "If Miss Patrice would only speak to me, I'd begin making the cake at once, for I hold with my own make above Buzzard's any day," Cook would remark when the now well-known knock of the constant lover was heard at the door.

All Cook had seen of him was his legs. These she seemed to know intimately, for she saw them daily as she looked through the kitchen window and up the area steps. "I've never caught a sight of his face yet," she grumbled; "if I had I could tell at once if he was true or not." "True! of course he's true! What should he come for, if he wasn't?" Mary asked. "Well! he haven't even given her his photograph yet," Cook argued. "I used to tell her poor Ma there would be trouble with a lover some day for Miss Patrice, for she never had a doll a week before it got broken ; yet she was that gentle in her way of playing with them, that they should have lasted till now by rights." " Don't tell us any more old woman's tales about broken dolls," Mary said triumphantly, coming down to the kitchen just before dinner one night.

" Miss Patrice called me in to hook her dress, and she held her hand out to me with an emerald ring sparkling on it, and her eyes sparkling more than the ring. "Look here," she says, " I'm engaged to Mr. Graham, Mary, and he has given me this; and lay another cover for he's going to dine with us." Then she flew downstairs, and I heard him say: "My own darling! I'm the luckiest fellow living." " The Luckiest Felloiv living." 21 "So he is," Cook said, as Mary paused in her recital; "but I wish it hadn't been an emerald -green is forsaken." "Oh! well, you are a croker. There'll be no forsaking; and what a handsome pair they'll be."

Chapter III

"DO YOU KNOW MISS LAUGHERNE?" It was April when Sholto Graham came to the conclusion that Patrice would be an admirable wife for him in the near future, and a charming girl to be engaged to in the meantime. Whether she was his first love or his fiftieth has nothing to do with the story. She was at any rate the first one who had ever won a direct offer of marriage from him. He had flattered and flirted with many, he had been what he himself called very hard hit, half a dozen times. But lack of money on the side of the ladies, and lack of opportunity of making sufficient himself to keep any one of them in decent comfort, had hitherto put a padlock on his tongue. In previous cases he had either observed a masterly inactivity, which disgusted the parents, or he had retreated in irreproachable good order, in a prudent way that filled the breasts of the girls he had left behind him, with tepid, unharmful regret merely.