Meet The Baron

Manor, studied her, and smiled to himself. She looked an arrogant old shrew — hard, embittered, and self-centred, as though sixty years in a fast-changing world had proved too much for her.

The Cornel laughed suddenly. Lady Mary looked at him, as he knew she would, and her grey eyes were sparkling. A man or woman of understanding had but to look into her deep grey eyes to know that her thin lips and pointed chin were lying. Her eyes bespoke humour and understanding. So did her voice — a rather slow, low voice.

“What’s the matter with you now, George?” she asked.

The Colonel smiled behind his bushy white moustache.

“I was thinking,” he said, “that, of all the men who’ve met you because of Marie, Mannering’s the only one who’s not been scared away. There are possibilities about that man, Mary.”

“I don’t think so, George, where Marie is concerned.”

Colonel Belton was surprised, and a little disappointed. He liked Mannering, he loved Lady Mary’s daughter, and he adored Lady Mary herself. His knowledge of the women, built up during the five years that he had been the Overndons’ next-door neighbour, had told him that John Mannering would make an admirable husband for Marie and an excellent son-in-law for Mary. True, none of them knew more than that Mannering was young — well, youngish: thirty-five, perhaps — handsome enough, apparently rich enough, and a member of a family as respected as the Overndons. But the Colonel had built for himself a pleasant little fairy-story with a happy ending. Marie was twenty- two, and the Colonel was old-fashioned enough to believe in early marriages for women. So he scowled, and demanded an explanation.

Lady Mary regarded the two people who had just left the tennis-court and were moving across the lawn towards the Manor. The Colonel whistled to himself, tor he knew that Lady Mary was sad, and for the life of him he couldn’t guess why.

“They make a handsome pair, don’t they?” he demanded doggedly. “What’s the matter with Mannering? This is the first time you’ve ever suggested anything against him. Damn it, and I . . .”

“George,” said Lady Mary gently, “you talk too much.”

There were some things that Colonel Belton took hardly, even from Lady Mary. He frowned, pursed his lips, and sulked.

Mannering, dressed in white flannels that were vivid against the sunlit green of the lawn, walked easily and carried his seventy-two inches well. Lady Mary could see him smiling as he talked to Marie, who hardly reached his shoulder. His face was tanned to the intriguing degree of brown that could make even a plain man distinguished, but he would have been presentable without that. Marie Overndon was small, dainty, and lovely. Her wide grey eyes, suggestive of her mother’s, looked out on the world with confessed enjoyment; she was alive. Slim, straight, and supple, she carried herself with easy grace as she walked with Mannering towards the house.i

They were within twenty yards when a “hallo” came from the end of the garden, and a man and a woman hurried through a wicket-gate, brandishing tennis-rackets and shouting as they came.

The Colonel scowled as the couple on the lawn turned to meet the newcomers. He continued to scowl as the four went to the tennis-court for a pre-arranged set and were lost to sight, hidden by a thick shrubbery. He took a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it with tobacco from a leather pouch. Not until the first puff did his face clear, and at the same moment Lady Mary laughed.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the Colonel explosively. “Damn it, Mary — why the blazes don’t you make up your mind and marry me?”

“So that you can put in more time at your club?”

“Bah!” said the Colonel.

“I’ll marry you,” said Lady Overndon, “when Marie’s married. Not before.”

“She’s a born spinster,” snapped the Colonel, “and you do your damnedest every time a likely fellow comes along to make him realise it, Mannering’s a bit old, perhaps, as today’s youth goes, but that’s almost an advantage; and they’re well matched, aren’t they? And they’re as much in love with each other as — as . . .”

“You with me?” suggested Lady Mary.

“There are times,” said the Colonel, “when I could bowstring you! Be fair, Mary. What’s Mannering done to upset you?”

Lady Mary used her lorgnette to scare a persistent fly from her small ear.

“Nothing,” she said, during the operation. “I like Mannering, George, and I can’t think of anyone I’d like better — for Marie, of course.”

“Then — then what the deuce are you driving at?”

“Shhh!” said Lady Overndon. “It’s hot, and you’ll get apoplexy — and burying you might be even more painful than marrying you. George, Mannering had a talk with me this morning.

“About Marie?”

“About Marie — and other things. He told me that he’s worth a bare thousand a year. No more, no less.”

The Colonel’s pipe dropped to the carpet, and the start of his outburst was spoiled somewhat by his hasty recovery of the brier. He was positively bristling as he spoke.

“A — a thousand ? Damn it, Mary, I thought he was — his father was rolling in it, wasn’t he?”

“His father didn’t gamble on the turf or off it.”

“And Mannering — Mannering’s lost his money?”

“Most of it.”

“Gambling? Horses?”