THE MASSARENES THE MASSARENES BY OUIDA AUTHOR OF “UNDER TWO FLAGS,” “SYRLIN” NEW YORK R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 112 FIFTH AVENUE LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. Copyright, 1897 BY R. F. FENNO & COMPANY TO A BELOVED FRIEND, THE LADY HOWARD OF GLOSSOP. (WINIFRED MARY DE LISLE.) NOTICE. In case it may be supposed that the African episode in this book was suggested by recent events in the Transvaal, I desire to state that it was written four years before the Jameson raid occurred. OUIDA. THE MASSARENES. CHAPTER I. “Mouse,” said her husband to Lady Kenilworth, one morning at Homburg, “do you see that large pale woman over there, with a face like a crumpled whitey-brown paper bag?” Lady Kenilworth looked. “Yes,” she said, impatiently. “Yes. Well?--what?--why?” “Well, she rolls--she absolutely rolls--wallows--biggest pile ever made out West.” His wife looked again with a little more attention at the large figure of a lady, superbly clothed, who sat alone under a tree, and had that desolate air of “not being in it” which betrays the unelect. “Nobody discovered her? Nobody taken her up?” she asked, still looking through her eye-glass. “Well, old Khris a little; but Khris can’t get anybody on now. He does ’em more harm than good. He’s dead broke.” His wife smiled. “They must be new, indeed, if they don’t know that. Would they be rich enough to buy Vale Royal of Gerald?” “Lord, yes; rich enough to buy a hundred Gerrys and Vales Royal. I know it for a fact from men in the City: they are astonishing--biggest income in the United States, after Vanderbilt and Pullman.” “American, then?” “No; made their ‘stiff’ there, and come home to spend it.” “Name?” “Massarene. Cotton to her if you can. There’s money to be made.” “Hush! somebody will hear.” Her lord chuckled. “Does anybody know these dear souls and their kind for any other reason than the flimsy? She’s looking your way. You’ll have to introduce yourself, for she don’t know anybody here. Make Boo fall down and break her nose in front of her.” Boo was a four-year-old angel with lovely black eyes and bright yellow hair, the second child of the Kenilworth family. Accompanied by one of her nurses, she was playing near them, with a big rosy bladder tied to a string. “I don’t think the matter so difficult that Boo’s nose need be sacrificed. At what hotel is this person staying?” “At ours.” “Oh! Then the thing’s very easy.”