Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/262



At eleven o'clock the next morning, Sir Arthur Babraham, looking worried and distrait, was pretending to read the "Times." If ever a man could be said to have "been born with a silver spoon in his mouth" it was this soft-voiced, easy-mannered, kindly gentleman. The rubs of a hard world had hardly touched his unflawed surfaces. He sat on committees, it was true, and played Providence at third or fourth hand to less happily situated mortals; yet scarcely, if at all, had he been brought face to face with the stark realities of life.

It is never too late, however, for some new thing to occur. The previous evening an experience had happened to this worthy man; and he could not rid his mind of the fact that it was disconcerting. On a table at his elbow was a picture without a frame, and more than once his eyes strayed from the newspaper to this object, which at a first glance was so insignificant, and yet as if cursed with an "obi" it had the power to dominate him completely.

In the midst of this preoccupation, Laura Babraham entered the room. She had returned late from the dance, and this was her first appearance that morning. Hardly had she saluted her father when her eye also fell on the picture, and a look of deep anxiety came into her eyes.

"Have you heard anything from the hospital?" she asked eagerly.