Craven Fortune

The well-trained servants glided about the dining-room in the noiseless fashion peculiar to their class. It was a large perfectly-appointed room, filled with priceless pictures, bronzes and old furniture, and the arrangement of the electric light was a dream. For Stephen Morrison had been wise in his day and generation. A money-maker of the new type, he had no time to become a collector. He had engaged a clever artist who was a connoisseur in such matters, and had given him a blank cheque to furnish his house at Middlesworth. When money and taste go together there is only one result possible, and this result Morrison had obtained. Men of large estate and ancient pedigree envied Morrison his house... The gleam of the electric light touched her gold bronze hair and lighted up her lovely grey eyes. It was a sweet yet strong and tender face, and Wilfrid’s features softened as he looked after the girl.“Who’s that?” the man by his side asked. “Not one of the Morrison girls, I’ll swear. Looks like a lady.”“So she is, Bentley,” Bayfield said, a little coldly. “I have known her for a long time.”Bayfield spoke with some restraint. He had no liking for Horace Bentley, though he met him everywhere. Bentley was a Middlesworth solicitor, who had some time before succeeded to his father’s practice and was reputed to be rich and not over-scrupulous. He was not bad-looking in a dark effeminate kind of way, only his eyes were shifty.“But who is she?” the lawyer persisted. “And why did she smile at you like that? How do you manage these little affairs so well, Bayfield?”Bayfield flushed with annoyance. He had no liking for jokes at the expense of women, and the suggestion of an intrigue with a salaried member of Morrison’s household jarred on him...