THE DAZZLING MISS DAVISON
THE DAZZLING
MISS DAVISON
BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
AUTHOR OF
“THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH”
NEW YORK
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1910, by
THE NEW IDEA PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright, 1910, by
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
(All Rights Reserved)
Printed in the United States of America
THE DAZZLING MISS
DAVISON
CHAPTER I
A roomy, comfortable, old-fashioned house in Bayswater,with high windows, big rooms, and little balconiesjust big enough to hold a wealth of flowersin summer and a very pretty show of evergreens whenthe season for flowers was past.
On October a row of asters, backed up by a tallerrow of foliage plants, made the house look brightand pretty, and the young faces that appeared at thewindows of the drawing-room made it prettier still.
Mr. and Mrs. Aldington, the occupiers of thehouse, thought that there was nothing pleasanter inlife than the gayety of young people, and so, as theyhad only two children, a son and a daughter, bothgrown up, they gave a general invitation to theyounger generation, of which, particularly on a Sundayafternoon and evening, the contemporaries oftheir son and daughter were not slow to avail themselves.
Especially was it the pleasure of these good-hearted[2]people to extend hospitality to those youngfolks whose lives were, for one reason or another,not so bright as those of their own children. Andmany a friendless young barrister waiting for a brief,young doctor struggling for a practice, and many agirl whose parents had a hard time of it in keepingup a fair position on an unfairly small income, foundrecreation and a warm welcome at the old-fashionedhouse in Bayswater.
Some of them found more than that. GerardBuckland, for instance, a clever young barrister whowas tired of hearing of the great things he was to dosome day, since he was unable to get even smallthings to do to go on with, found at the Aldingtonssomething that he had stoutly resolved to do withoutuntil he had “got on.”
He found, in other words, his “ideal.”
It was on a bright Sunday afternoon, when thebig drawing-room was full of lively people, mostlyyoung, and all talking at once, that Gerard, havingbeen introduced by Arthur Aldington two Sundayspreviously, took advantage for the third time of thegeneral invitation given him by the host and hostess,and found himself surrounded by a dozen peopleamong whom he knew no one except the Aldingtonsthemselves.
Whereupon Rose, the daughter of the house, madehim sit by her, and, as he was shyly looking over abasketful of loose photographs which he had found[3]on a table besi