



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
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WHERE LOVE IS

By William J. Locke

New York

Grosset & Dunlap Publishers

Copyright, 1903 By John Lane



“_Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and
hatred therewith_.”

_The Proverbe of Solomon_




WHERE LOVE IS




Chapter I--THE FIRST GLIMPSE


HAVE you dined at Ranelagh lately?” asked Norma Hardacre.

“I have never been there in my life,” replied Jimmie Padgate. “In fact,”
 he added simply, “I am not quite sure whether I know where it is.”

“Yours is the happier state. It is one of the dullest spots in a dull
world.”

“Then why on earth do people go there?”

The enquiry was so genuine that Miss Hardacre relaxed her expression of
handsome boredom and laughed.

“Because we are all like the muttons of Panurge,” she said. “Where one
goes, all go. Why are we here to-night?”

“To enjoy ourselves. How could one do otherwise in Mrs. Deering's
house?”

“You have known her a long time, I believe,” remarked Norma, taking the
opportunity of directing the conversation to a non-contentious topic.

“Since she was in short frocks. She is a cousin of King's--that's the
man who took you down to dinner--”

She nodded. “I have known Mr. King many weary ages.”

“And he has never told me about you!”

“Why should he?”

She looked him full in the face, with the stony calm of the fashionable
young woman accustomed to take excellent care of herself. Her companion
met her stare in whimsical confusion. Even so ingenuous a being as
Jimmie Padgate could not tell a girl he had met for the first time that
she was beautiful, adorable, and graced with divine qualities above all
women, and that intimate acquaintance with her must be the startling
glory of a lifetime.

“If I had known you for ages,” he replied prudently, “I should have
mentioned your name to Morland King.”

“Are you such friends then?”

“Fast friends: we were at school together, and as I was a lonely little
beggar I used to spend many of my holidays with his people. That is how
I knew Mrs. Deering in short frocks.”

“It's odd, then, that I haven't met you about before,” said the girl,
giving him a more scrutinising glance than she had hitherto troubled to
bestow upon him. A second afterwards she felt that her remark might have
been in the nature of an indiscretion, for her companion had not at all
the air of a man moving in the smart world to which she belonged. His
dress-suit was old and of lamentable cut; his shirt-cuffs were frayed;
a little bone stud, threatening every moment to slip the button-hole,
precariously secured his shirt-front. His thin, iron-grey hair was
untidy; his moustache was ragged, innocent of wax or tongs or any of
the adventitious aids to masculine adornment. His aspect gave the
impression, if not of poverty, at least of narrow means and humble ways
of life. Although he had sat next her at dinner, she had paid little
attention to him, finding easier entertainment in her conversation with
King on topics of common interest, than in possible argument with a
strange man whom she heard discussing the functions of art and other
such head-splitting matters with his right-hand neighbour. Indeed, her
question about Ranelagh when she found him by her side, later, in the
drawing-room was practically the first she had addressed to him with any
show of interest.

She hastened to repair her maladroit observation by adding before he
could reply,--

“That is rather an imbecile thing to say considering the
millions of people in London. But one is apt to talk in an imbecile
manner after a twelve hours' day of hard racket in the season. Don't you
think so? One's stock of ideas gets used up, like the air at the end of
a dance.”

“Not if you keep your soul properly ventilated,” he answered.

The words were, perhaps, not so arresting as the manner in which they
were uttered. Norma Hardacre was startled. A little shutter in the
back of her mind seemed to have flashed open for an elusive second, and
revealed a prospect wide, generous, alive with free-blowing airs.
Then all was dark again before she could realise the vision. She was
disconcerted,