Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/112

Rh "Holborn" for half an hour. The songs he heard did not transport him with merriment, but, after a while, he drew out a note-book, and made some rapid sketches of two or three of the performers—suggestions, drawn with few and vigorous touches, and showing a rare aptitude for seizing character rather than a delicate perception of beauty. After that he strolled home to his lodging, in Jermyn Street; and the refrain of his thoughts was—"at any cost." What did it mean? He should not rest satisfied till he had discovered. The subject of Elizabeth Shaw and her exceptional position had interested the young man ever since the day he first saw her in his uncle's office, and had learnt so much concerning her and her father. There was something about the girl's appearance that fascinated him, though he had never spoken to her. He had been struck at once by her free, erect carriage, her fine dark eyes, a certain unconventionality of demeanour, so little resembling that of the middle-class young ladies whom he knew. Also, to be quite frank, the knowledge that she was a great heiress was a potent and distinct attraction to a man of George's astuteness, ambition, and invincible perseverance. Like most of us, he was a tangled skein of good and evil; but the white threads were uppermost. His good temper was patent to all. His self-sacrifice in ministering to his uncle's comfort was known to Joshua Twisden's many friends. His kind actions to humbler men, his diligence, his exactitude, were fruitful subjects for eulogy when George Daintree's name was mentioned. Half a life-time of intimacy might have failed—unless the occasion served—to detect the convolutions of dark thread which