Page:William Le Queux - The Temptress.djvu/55

40 "Why do you give me this mysterious warning, old chap?"

"She's bewitching, I admit: but a pretty face is not all that is desirable in a woman. If you're on the look-out for a suitable partner—and it seems you are—I advise you not to make her your wife, or you'll repent it. Besides, a rich man like yourself can choose from among the younger and possibly better-looking bargains offered by anxious but impecunious mothers."

"Oh yes; I know alt about that," replied Hugh impatiently. "I shall never take any advice upon matrimony, so you are only wasting breath. The man who frowns at coquetry is often willing enough to wink at the coquette. I'm master of my own actions, and were we not old friends, Jack, I should consider this abominable impertinence on your part."

"But, my dear fellow, it is in your own interests! that"—

"Bother my interests! Have another cigar and shut up!"

"Very well, as you please."

The two men, who were thus discussing the merits of a female form which had just passed, were seated at an open window at the Queen's Hotel, at Eastbourne. It was an August morning, warm, with scarcely a breath of wind. The cerulean sky reflected upon the clear sea, glassy and calm in the sunlight, while the white sails of the yachts and the distant outlines of larger vessels relieved the monotonous expanse of blue, and added effect and harmony to the scene.

A fashionable crowd of loungers were passing and re-passing the window, keeping under the shadow of the houses; for the fair ones who frequent seaside resorts, presumably for health, never desire their faces tanned.

Now that the legal formalities had been accom-