The Convert

, the beholder, a little dazzled in that first instant by the warmth of colour burning in the ancient brick, might adapt th

r or his defiance in the squat and sturdy tower with its cautious slits in lieu of windows. Yet another Ulland had brought home from eighteenth-century Italy a love of colonnades and terraced g

eth who had set the dial on the lawn. Even the latest lord had found a way to leave his impress upon the time. He introduced 'Clock golf' at Ulland. From the upper windows on the south and west the roving eye was caught by the great staring face of this new timepiece on the turf-its Roman numerals showing keen and white upon the viv

e park. After a couple of raw days, the afternoon had turned out quite unseasonably warm, and though the golfers had come back earlier than usual, n

conversability that may be trusted to soothe and counted on never to startle. Hermione would almost as soon have stood on her head in Piccadilly as have said anything original, though to her private consternation such perilous stuff had been known to harbour an uneasy instant in her bosom. She carried such inconvenient cargo as carefully hidden as a conspirator would a bomb under his cloak. It had grown to be as necessary to her to agree with the views and fashions of the majority as it was disquieting to her to see these contravened, or even for a single hour ignored. Fro

ted it will be seen that a justified faith in the excellence of the Ulland links had not made Lady John unmindful of the wis

d look to have the above-hinted high and delicate office performed by so upright and downright-not to say so bony-a young woman, with face so like a horse, and the stride of a grenadier. Under her short leather-bou

aused, eyeing the approaching party,-that genial silver-haired despot, her husband, walking with Lord Borrodaile, the gawky girl between them, except when she paused to practise a drive. The fourth person, a short, compactly knit man, was lounging along several paces behind, but

r the first brew,' promp

oning somewhere a

O

u say it l

was bringing up the rear. He was younger than his

ck Farnborough can't ab

y likely to appreciate an undisciplined creature

the girl, lightly, 'only as Sophia sa

er into the pot, Lady John glanced over the small thickset ange

er tongue. It's a mistake

you

ciall

hat men-all except Paul-would be more sho

ents. I don't see how they'll ever marry her. She might just

greed Hermione, apparently conscious

to walk.' Lady John was still

out of doors,' sai

drawing-room as if she were

her breath, 'when she is indoors I'd

way she cros

es

o seeing a pair of neat ankles crossed-it looks rather nice and early Victorian. Nowadays lots

men laughed un

ic spirit to make up a foursome, but constantly and for pure selfish love of it. Woman may, if she likes, take it as a compliment to her sex that this proclivity-held to be wholly natural in a man-is called 'rather unfeminine' in a woman. But it was a defect like the rest, forgiven the Lady Sophia for her father's sa

onlooker nearly every aspect of this particular young woman would seem destined to offend a beauty-loving, critical taste like that of Borrodaile, he was probably served, as other mortals are, by that philosophy of the senses which brings in time a deafness and a blindness to the unloveliness that we needs must live beside. Lord Borrodaile was far too intelligent not to see, too, that when people had got over Lady Sophia's uncompromising exterior, they found things in her to admire as well as to stand a little in awe of. Unlike one another as the Borrodailes were, in one respect they presented to the world an undivided front. From their point of view, just as laws existed to keep other people in order, so was 'fashion

ong the thick-growing laurels issued Paul Filey. He raised his eyes, and hurriedly thrust a small book into his pocket. The young la

to Filey, 'our side gave a good a

as soon as my malign

tuation assumed a new aspect. You'll never play a good g

niece, 'I always tremble when I see him

ure he thinks of himself as a prose Shelley;

following his critic up the steps, she still mocking

the flagged floor of the colonnade, Mr. Filey sought refuge near Hermione, as th

figure garbed in stuff which Filey had said was fit only for horse-blankets, but which w

daughter of a hundred earls has the manners of a groom,

r once you'd said som

e said.

wasn

t did she mind? Wh

t that out of a novel

hton said it, too? Then there are more of them!'

She couldn't play golf in a

a woman to

ecision just how perfectly at that moment she herself was presenting

n, his companions, came up the st

d Lady John, holding out a cup, 'you won't h

. 'Lady John didn't ask me,' he confided. As he saw in Hermione's face a project to intercede for h

half laughing, but her view of the reality of the d

that was going on about some unnamed politician of the day, with whose cha

g his ailing and childless brother. There were lamentations

ich the tradition of public service, generations old

hn was saying, 'how a man with suc

te he wrung out of Gladstone at the very beginning of his career.

a little whack to the Bedlington. 'Sh! Joey! do

ing over the lady with

y Stonor,' an

tonor th

of co

?' demanded File

nd "the coming man"-who has such a frightful lot in him that very little

ryly, 'you'll just mention th

a keen look in his eyes. 'You

ked round at her hos

to pla

r a round to-night, but we're rather

Sophia's long fac

ring to Lady John as he went round to her on the pretext of m

ving in her somewhat crude way, 'that

years he wanted to come down and try our links,

too busy, ain't he, Joey, even if we

l see!' said Farnborough

n, 'he's still a you

Lady Sophia to no one in particular, and with her mouth rather more full

forty is young,'

andolph had contrived to get so early in life over the House of Commons. It occurred to me to wonder just how much of a boy Lord Randolph was at the time. I was going to

ose it's not very easy to do much while your pa

gs about our coming back will be

er Secretaryship under the last Government, didn't

aid Borrodai

for any lack of enthusiasm-'the wa

'But if Stonor had ever looked upon politics as more

o as far as that? I doubt myself if h

rench. The English have a natural distrust of the demagogue. I tell you if S

he i

runch of gravel. The wall of laurel was too thick to give any glimpse from this side of the drive that wound round to the main entrance. Bu

ing him at close quarters

for. He's so many-sided. I saw him yesterday at a Bond Street sh

did he take t

ce. You see, Stonor could understand the art of the

rsation, mere decent pretence at not being absorbed