Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/216

 'It is nothing. I suddenly forgot what I was saying. I do that sometimes'—and she laughed nervously.

'And this fall,' continued Mr. Clapyard when order had been restored to the conversation, 'we both of us will be publishing Captain Jones's big volumes on Araby. I have never brought out a book I felt more pride in than that.'

Lanice, completely at her ease once more, smiled and nodded and told one or two anecdotes about the traveller's great American tour. The tight, poor cousin was gazing at her perhaps with envy, perhaps with suspicion.

'This,' she said fingering a lump of amber tied too closely about her neck, with a red ribbon,  ' He gave me this.'

'Yes,' elaborated Mr. Clapyard, 'Effie saw him daily in our office, and was able to help him a little. It was kind of him to remember her in parting—very courteous of him.' The two young women stared frankly at each other.

'He has left England then? '(How lucky it was that her confusion had come upon her before the actual mention of Anthony's name—a name by which to conjure up women the world over.)

'Yes,' said the unfriendly country cousin.

'No—no,' corrected Mr. Clapyard mildly, 'hardly yet. He leaves England within the month, but he left London three days ago. They say, in recognition of some secret good he did in Araby, he is to be appointed Political Agent at Bagdad with an eye out for the whole of Persia and Arabia.'