WHERE LOVE IS By William J. Locke New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers Copyright, 1903 By John Lane “_Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith_.” _The Proverbe of Solomon_ WHERE LOVE IS Chapter I--THE FIRST GLIMPSE HAVE you dined at Ranelagh lately?” asked Norma Hardacre. “I have never been there in my life,” replied Jimmie Padgate. “In fact,” he added simply, “I am not quite sure whether I know where it is.” “Yours is the happier state. It is one of the dullest spots in a dull world.” “Then why on earth do people go there?” The enquiry was so genuine that Miss Hardacre relaxed her expression of handsome boredom and laughed. “Because we are all like the muttons of Panurge,” she said. “Where one goes, all go. Why are we here to-night?” “To enjoy ourselves. How could one do otherwise in Mrs. Deering's house?” “You have known her a long time, I believe,” remarked Norma, taking the opportunity of directing the conversation to a non-contentious topic. “Since she was in short frocks. She is a cousin of King's--that's the man who took you down to dinner--” She nodded. “I have known Mr. King many weary ages.” “And he has never told me about you!” “Why should he?” She looked him full in the face, with the stony calm of the fashionable young woman accustomed to take excellent care of herself. Her companion met her stare in whimsical confusion. Even so ingenuous a being as Jimmie Padgate could not tell a girl he had met for the first time that she was beautiful, adorable, and graced with divine qualities above all women, and that intimate acquaintance with her must be the startling glory of a lifetime. “If I had known you for ages,” he replied prudently, “I should have mentioned your name to Morland King.” “Are you such friends then?” “Fast friends: we were at school together, and as I was a lonely little beggar I used to spend many of my holidays with his people. That is how I knew Mrs. Deering in short frocks.”