There was a crowd of eager gossips secretly tracking him who watched
him roll away in state to the marble house.
"By Jove! I believe that he is the coming man!" said old Captain
Verner. "I wonder if this handsome young beggar is really going in
for the Veiled Rose of Delhi. Just his damned luck!" And then the
loungers left the club window and drank deeply confusion to the
would-be wooer's stratagems.
All unconscious of their busy curiosity, the gallant Major Alan
Hawke calmly descended at the marble house, with a secret oath now
registered to ignore the very existence of Nadine Johnstone, "The
old man is always harping on his daughter," he mused. "I must throw
this old beggar off his guard thoroughly to-day, once and for all.
He must never think that I, too, am 'harping on his daughter.'
"But only let me get to the core of this old secret of the jewels,
and I will find a way to frighten the baronet-to-be until he opens his
miserly old heart." And so the wary guest sought his old friend's
presence. When Major Alan Hawke's neat trap drew up before the
marble house there was an officious crowd of Hindu underlings in
waiting to welcome the expected guest.
Casting his eyes around the wide hall gleaming with its superb
trophies of priceless arms, with a quick glance at the crowd of
sable retainers, Major Hawke realized in all the barren splendors
of the first story the absence of any womanly hand.
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