MARY SCOTT PAYS AN UNEXPECTED CALL

Brooks met the butler entering the room with a card upon his salver. He stretched out his hand for it mechanically, but the man only regarded him in mild surprise. "For his lordship, sir. Excuse me."

The man passed on. Brooks remained bewildered. Lord Arranmore took the card from the tray and examined it leisurely.

"Miss Mary Scott," he repeated aloud. "Are you sure that the young lady asked to see me?"

"Quite sure, your lordship," the servant answered.

"Scott. The name sounds familiar, somehow!" Lord Arranmore said.

"Haven't I heard you mention it, Brooks?

"Miss Scott is the niece of Mr. Bullsom, one of my best clients, a large builder in Medchester," Brooks answered. "Why?"

He stopped suddenly short. Arranmore glanced towards him in polite unconcern.

"You saw her with me at Mellon's, in Medchester. You asked me her name."

Lord Arranmore bent the card in his forefinger, and dropped his eyeglass.

"So that is the young lady," he remarked. "I remember her distinctly.

But I do not understand what she can want within me. Is she by any chance, Brooks, one of those young persons who go about with a collecting-card--who want money for missions and that sort of thing? If so, I am afraid she has wasted her cab fare."

"She is not in the least that sort of person," Brooks answered, emphatically. "I have no idea what she wants to see you about, but I am convinced that her visit has a legitimate object."

Lord Arranmore stuck the card in his waistcoat pocket and shrugged his shoulders.

"You are my man of affairs, Brooks. I commission you to see her. Find out her business if you can, and don't let me be bothered unless it is necessary."

Brooks hesitated.

"I am not sure that I care to interfere--that my presence might not be likely to cause her embarrassment," he said. "I have seen her lately, and she made no mention of this visit."

Lord Arranmore glanced at him as though surprised. "I should like you to see her," he said, suavely. "It seems to me preferable to asking her to state her business to a servant. If you have any objection to doing so she must be sent back."

Brooks turned unwillingly away. As he had expected, Mary sprang to her feet upon his entrance into the room, and the colour streamed into her cheeks.

"You here!" she exclaimed.

He shook hands with her, and tried to behave as though he thought her presence the most natural thing in the world. "Yes. You see I am Lord Arranmore's man of affairs now, and he keeps me pretty hard at work. He seems to have a constitutional objection to doing anything for himself.

He has even sent me to--to--"

"I understand," she interrupted. "To ascertain my business. Well, I can't tell it even to you. It is Lord Arranmore whom I want to see. No one else will do."

Brooks leaned against the table and looked at her with a puzzled smile.

"You see, it's a little awkward, isn't it?" he declared. "Lord Arranmore is very eccentric, and especially so upon this point. He will not see strangers. Write him a line or two and let me take it to him."

She considered for a moment.

"Very well. Give me a piece of paper and an envelope."

She wrote a single line only. Brooks took it back into the great inner hall, where Lord Arranmore had started another game of billiards with Lady Caroom.

"Miss Scott assured me that her business with you is private," he announced. "She has written this note."

Lord Arranmore laid his cue deliberately aside and broke the seal. It was evident that the contents of the note consisted of a few words only, yet after once perusing them he moved a little closer to the light and re-read them slowly. Then with a little sigh he folded the note in the smallest possible compass and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket.

"Your young friend, my dear Brooks," he said, taking up his cue, "does me the honour to mistake me for some one else. Will you inform her that I have no knowledge of the person to whom she alludes, and suggest--as delicately as you choose--that as she is mistaken an interview is unnecessary. It is, I believe, my turn, Catherine." "You decline, then, to see her?" Brooks said.

Lord Arranmore turned upon him with a rare irritation.

"Have I not made myself clear, Brooks?" he said. "If I were to keep open house to all the young women who choose to claim acquaintance with me I should scarcely have a moment to call my own, or a house fit to ask my friends to visit. Be so good as to make my answer sufficiently explicit."

"It is unnecessary, Lord Arranmore. I have come to ask you for it yourself."

They all turned round. Mary Scott was coming slowly towards them across the thick rugs, into which her feet sunk noiselessly. Her face was very pale, and her large eyes were full of nervous apprehension. But about her mouth were certain rigid lines which spoke of determination.

Sybil leaned forward from her chair, and Lady Caroom watched her approach with lifted eyebrows and a stare of well-bred and languid insolence. Lord Arranmore laid down his cue and rose at once to meet her.

"You are Lord Arranmore," she said, looking at him fixedly. "Will you please answer the question--in my note?"

He bowed a little coldly, but he made no remark as to her intrusion. "I have already," he said, "given my answer to Mr. Brooks. The name which you mention is altogether unknown to me, nor have I ever visited the place you speak of. You have apparently been misled by a chance likeness."

"It is a very wonderful one," she said, slowly, keeping her eyes fixed upon him.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I regret," he said, "that you should have had your journey for nothing.

I can, I presume, be of no further use to you."

"I do not regret my journey here," she answered. "I could not rest until I had seen you closely, face to face, and asked you that question.

You deny then that you were ever called Philip Ferringshaw?"

"Most assuredly," he answered, curtly.

"That is very strange," she said.

"Strange?

"Yes. It is very strange because I am perfectly certain that you were."

He took up his cue and commenced chalking it in a leisurely manner.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you are; I understand, a friend of Mr.

Brooks, and are therefore entitled to some amount of consideration from me. But I must respectfully remind you that your presence here is, to put it mildly, unsought, and that I do not find it pleasant to be called a liar under my own roof and before my friends."

"Pleasant!" she eyed him scornfully; "nor did my father find it pleasant to be ruined and murdered by you, a debauched gambler, a common swindler."