The Black Box | Page 4

the far distance, the stubble fields stretched
like patches of gold to ridges of pine-topped hills, and beyond to the
distant sea. The breakfast table at which his wife and daughter were
seated was arranged on the broad grey stone terrace, and, as he slowly
approached, it seemed like an oasis of flowers and fruit and silver. A
footman stood discreetly in the background. Half a dozen dogs of
various breeds came trotting forward to meet him. His wife, still
beautiful notwithstanding her forty-five years, had turned her pleasant
face towards him, and Ella, whom a great many Society papers had
singled out as being one of the most beautiful débutantes of the season,
was welcoming him with her usual lazy but wholly good-humoured
smile.
"Daddy, your habits are getting positively disgraceful!" she exclaimed.
"Mother and I have nearly finished--and our share of the post-bag is
most uninteresting. Please come and sit down, tell us where you are
going to shoot, and whether you've had any letters this morning?"

Lord Ashleigh loitered for a moment to raise the covers from the dishes
upon a side table. Afterwards he seated himself in the chair which the
servant was holding for him.
"I am going out for an hour or two with Fitzgerald," he announced.
"Partridges are scarcely worth shooting yet but he has arranged a few
drives over the hills. As for my being late--well, that has something to
do with you, young lady."
Ella looked at him with a sudden seriousness in her great eyes.
"Daddy, you've heard something!"
Lord Ashleigh pulled a bundle of letters from his pocket.
"I have," he admitted.
"Quick!" Ella begged. "Tell us all about it? Don't sit there, dad, looking
so stolid. Can't you see I am dying to hear? Quick, please!"
Her father smiled, glanced for a moment at the plate which had been
passed to him from the side table, approved of it and stretched out his
hand for his cup.
"I heard this morning," he said, "from your friend Delarey. He went
into the matter very fully. You shall read his letter presently. The sum
and substance of it all, however, is that for the first year of your
musical training he advises--where do you think?"
"Dresden," Lady Ashleigh suggested.
"Munich? Paris?" Ella put in breathlessly.
"All wrong," Lord Ashleigh declared. "New York!"
There was a momentary silence. Ella's eyes were sparkling. Her
mother's face had fallen.
"New York!" Ella murmured. "There is wonderful music there, and Mr.

Delarey knows it so well."
Lord Ashleigh nodded portentously.
"I have not finished yet. Mr. Delarey wound up his letter by promising
to cable me his final decision in the course of a few days. This
cablegram," he went on, drawing a little slip of blue paper from his
pocket, "was brought to me this morning whilst I was shaving. I found
it a most inconvenient time, as the lather--"
"Oh, bother the lather, father!" Ella exclaimed. "Read the cablegram, or
let me."
Her father smoothed it out before him and read--
"To Lord Ashleigh, Hamblin House, Dorset, England.
"I find a magnificent programme arranged for at Metropolitan Opera
House this year. Have taken box for your daughter, engaged the best
professor in the world, and secured an apartment at the Leeland, our
most select and comfortable residential hotel. Understand your brother
is still in South America, returning early spring, but will do our best to
make your daughter's year of study as pleasant as possible. Advise her
sail on Saturday by Mauretania."
"On Saturday?" Ella almost screamed.
"New York!" Lady Ashleigh murmured disconsolately. "How
impossible, George!"
Her husband handed over the letter and cablegram, which Ella at once
pounced upon. He then unfolded the local newspaper and proceeded to
make an excellent breakfast. When he had quite finished, he lit a
cigarette and rose a little abruptly to his feet as a car glided out of the
stable yard and slowly approached the front door.
"I shall now," he said, "leave you to talk over and discuss this matter
for the rest of the day. I believe you said, dear," he added, turning to his

wife, "that we were dining alone to-night?"
"Quite alone, George," Lady Ashleigh admitted. "We were to have
gone to Annerley Castle, but the Duke is laid up somewhere in
Scotland."
"I remember," her husband assented. "Very well, then, at dinner-time
to-night you can tell me your decision, or rather we will discuss it
together. James," he added, turning to the footman, "tell Robert I want
my sixteen-bore guns put in the car, and tell him to be very careful
about the cartridges."
He disappeared through the French windows. Lady Ashleigh was
studying the letter stretched out before her, her brows a little knitted,
her expression distressed. Ella had turned and