Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/360



FTER a while we talked again, and explained all the cross-purposes to each other, with the most interesting pauses in between the explanations. And Jack told me about himself, and Miss Paget.

It seems that her only sister was his mother, and she had been in love with his father before he met the sister. The father's name was Claud, and Jack was named after him. It was Miss Paget's favourite name, because of the man she had loved. But the first Claud was n't very lucky. He lost all his own money and most of his wife's, and died in South America, where he 'd gone in the hope of making more. Then the wife, Jack's mother, died too, while he was at Eton. After that Miss Paget's house was his home. Whenever he was extravagant at Oxford, as he was sometimes, she would pay his debts quite happily, and tell him that everything she had would be his some day, so he was not to bother about money. Accordingly, he did n't bother, but lived rather a lazy life—so he said—and enjoyed himself. A couple of years before I met him he got interested, through a friend, in a newly invented motor, which they both thought would be a wonderful success. Jack tried to get his aunt interested, too, but she did n't like the friend who had invented it—seemed jealous of Jack's affection for him—and refused to have anything to do with Rh