table."
"Put it down. You have no right whatever to look at it."
"If it had been so particular and private, he would have burnt it or carried it away."
"He was unnerved, and perhaps forgot what he did with it. You have acted very wrongly in touching it."
"I have done more than touch it; I have read it," said Sibyll. "It is from London: 'Willjoens Reef smashed up. J. F. absconded.' J. F. may stand for Uncle James."
At that moment the butler threw open the door and Mr. Frobisher entered in hat, greatcoat, and muffler, and with a whip in one hand.
"Did chance to leave an orange envelope?" he asked." Oh!" Sibyll had hastily laid the telegram on pink paper upon the table. "That is what I want, not the envelope."
He took it up with a hand that shook, as Joan observed
The without giving final instructions to his daughters, he was about to leave, when Joan said—
"Father, you will try to be back in time for dinner."
"If possible—can't say. Very serious news."
Then he left the room.
Joan went to one of the long windows and looked out. Next moment she saw her father ride past.
"I wish," said she, "that he had not decided on Fashion. Papa is much troubled in mind, and should have had a steadier horse to ride." Then, leaving the window, she picked up the telegram envelope and threw it into the fire, saying, "Sibyll, I am vexed with you. You know that you did wrong in reading the telegram."
"I don't care," retorted the younger. "Willjoens Reef smashed up. Dynamite, I suppose. J. F. absconded into space, blown up into the clouds, maybe. But no, dynamite strikes downwards. I wonder if J.F. stands for Uncle James. If so, perhaps this telegram promises us relief from his rather tiresome presence and tedious commercial talk. I loathe all that smacks and savours of trade and money-making. It is vulgar."
Chapter 4
WITH THE DESSERT
Joan Frobisher, having lost her mother when still a child, had been called upon by her father to take that mother's place in social functions, to entertain visitors, to occupy the head of the table at dinners, and act generally as hostess. She was consequently able to discharge her duties with easy confidence. Possessed of good feeling and the tact that springs out of it, she had united in her every requisite that goes to make up a perfect hostess. She was skilful in starting topics upon which she knew that her guests could talk, in maintaining conversation in flow, and by delicate intervention to draw every member of the circle into it.
But on the occasion of the evening after the opening hunt, when the party sat down and her father was still absent, the burden of her task was felt by her as oppressive and irksome; it was with an effort that she discharged even the ordinary formalities.
The obligation under which she lay of apologizing for the lack of the presence of the host, and explaining it, was in itself embarrassing and a damper to conviviality. But in addition there was much that occupied her mind, and there were cares that distracted it. She could not shake off the painful impression produced on her by her father's treatment of Mr. Beaudessart. Not only was his behaviour unjust towards him, but it was humiliating to herself. The mortification was the more poignant because she could not but perceive that it was Mr. Beaudessart and his father who were the injured parties, and that her father, her sister, and herself were occupying a position to which they had attained solely through 'the caprice of a masterful and resentful old tyrant.
She recalled the smile that had played about the ,young man's lips when she had spoken such bold words about the Frobishers maintaining themselves in Pendabury against all attempts that might be made to dislodge them. He was aware at the time how empty the boast was. She coloured at the recollection that she had made it.
But if thoughts associated with this passage in the day's proceedings were painful, those that concerned the telegram were disquieting. The initials J. F. probably did serve to indicate her uncle, James Frobisher, as her sister had surmised. She knew that he was interested in a gold mine in the Transvaal.
She had not made her uncle's acquaintance till recently—a year ago—as he had been all his time in South Africa, Australia, Brazil, and California. He had been a wanderer, picking up a good deal of information in his wanderings, but shedding a good deal of the finer qualities of an Englishman at the same time.
He was full of schemes for making money, but none of these schemes as yet had enriched himself; the reason being, as he insisted, that you must have gold to make gold—as you must sow grain to reap a wheaten harvest. As he had been unprovided with capital he had seen others spring into the position of millionaires, and been himself incapable of following them.
He had obtained unbounded influence over her father, whom he had dazzled with his speculative projects.
Certainly Uncle James had been an entertaining man for a while, but wearisome to listen to for long, especially to such as had no money to embark in foreign ventures. Joan had not been able to feel confidence in his integrity. He was too fluent, flexible, and flashy, to inspire trust. There was an apparent lack in him of an indefinable something, and that a something like principle, and there was a shiftiness that implied an absence of strict views as to right and wrong.
Joan had behaved towards her uncle with gracious courtesy, even with friendliness, but without being able to draw to him with affection. On the other band, Sibyll had treated him with positive rudeness. She disliked her uncle because his conversation was about means of making money, speculation in railways, mines, factories, brandy distilleries, hotels; and Sibyll abhorred what she called "shop-talk."
Joan was disturbed over the telegraphic message, which was curt but significant. She shivered internally with the dread lest her uncle should have been engaged in some equivocal proceedings connected with what he termed the floating of his Willjoens Gold Reef Company, and that this had come to light and had forced him to levant.
She had no real foundation for such a surmise other than the words of the telegram, but she had no trust in her uncle's probity. She feared lest her father might have become entangled in the schemes of his brother.
Joan was proud as she was upright, and the surmise was enough to make her sick at heart; under a placid exterior she was forced to hide the troubles and fears that were distracting her.
The dining-room at Pendabury was a very stately apartment. It was long, lofty, and of a suitable width. The walls were panelled with old deal in immensely wide slabs, so perfectly seasoned and nicely united as to give the impression of each panel being composed of one single slice from a gigantic pine. The panels were enclosed within a moulded framework, and a rich cornice, or entablature, broken by the mitring above pilasters at intervals, divided the walls into sections; this was happily worked in with the rich plaster decoration of the ceiling. The woodwork was painted dark, and against this background the pictures showed to advantage.
The furniture was of mahogany, upholstered with velvet, of a comparatively modern character, and though rich and solid, was not in keeping with the Queen Anne style of the room.
The curtains were drawn; a large fire of logs, backed up with
