A Damsel in Distress

Yet, to her guests she was bright and entertaining. Not one of them

had a suspicion that her life was not one of pure sunshine.

Albert, I am happy to say, was thoroughly miserable. The little

brute was suffering torments. He was showering anonymous Advice to

the Lovelorn on Reggie Byng--excellent stuff, culled from the pages

of weekly papers, of which there was a pile in the housekeeper's

room, the property of a sentimental lady's maid--and nothing seemed

to come of it. Every day, sometimes twice and thrice a day, he

would leave on Reggie's dressing-table significant notes similar in

tone to the one which he had placed there on the night of the ball;

but, for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their

recipient, they might have been blank pages.

The choicest quotations from the works of such established writers

as "Aunt Charlotte" of Forget-Me-Not and "Doctor Cupid", the

heart-expert of Home Chat, expended themselves fruitlessly on

Reggie. As far as Albert could ascertain--and he was one of those

boys who ascertain practically everything within a radius of

miles--Reggie positively avoided Maud's society.

And this after reading "Doctor Cupid's" invaluable tip about

"Seeking her company on all occasions" and the dictum of "Aunt

Charlotte" to the effect that "Many a wooer has won his lady by

being persistent"--Albert spelled it "persistuent" but the effect

is the same--"and rendering himself indispensable by constant

little attentions". So far from rendering himself indispensable to

Maud by constant little attentions, Reggie, to the disgust of his

backer and supporter, seemed to spend most of his time with Alice

Faraday. On three separate occasions had Albert been revolted by

the sight of his protege in close association with the Faraday

girl--once in a boat on the lake and twice in his grey car. It was

enough to break a boy's heart; and it completely spoiled Albert's

appetite--a phenomenon attributed, I am glad to say, in the

Servants' Hall to reaction from recent excesses. The moment when

Keggs, the butler, called him a greedy little pig and hoped it

would be a lesson to him not to stuff himself at all hours with

stolen cakes was a bitter moment for Albert.

It is a relief to turn from the contemplation of these tortured

souls to the pleasanter picture presented by Lord Marshmoreton.

Here, undeniably, we have a man without a secret sorrow, a man at

peace with this best of all possible worlds. Since his visit to

George a second youth seems to have come upon Lord Marshmoreton. He

works in his rose-garden with a new vim, whistling or even singing

to himself stray gay snatches of melodies popular in the 'eighties.