Nor did she wish the
story of that long-ago murder to reach his ears. Dom Ferdinand had
publicly announced that he was horribly superstitious, and perhaps he
would not stay if he knew what had happened in the dining-room. He would
think it brought bad luck to live in such a house, even if he could bear
the idea of a ghost; for he talked of little else than what one ought to
do in order to attract luck.
After a few days at Monte Carlo Lord Dauntrey began to find
acquaintances, people he had known long ago in England before he was
swallowed up in darkest Africa, or those he had met at hotels since his
marriage--hotels chosen by Lady Dauntrey for the purpose of making
useful friends. He had a certain wistful, weary charm of manner that was
somehow likable and aroused sympathy, especially in women, though it was
evident that he made no conscious effort to please.
There was a vague, floating rumour of some old, more than half-forgotten
scandal about him: an accident, giving the wrong drug when he was
studying medicine as a very young man; a death; a sad story hushed up; a
prudent disappearance from Europe, urged by annoyed aristocratic
relatives who had little money to speed his departure, but gave what
they could; professional failure in South Africa; some gambling-trouble
in Johannesburg, and a vanishing again into the unknown. Nevertheless
his title was an old one. Men of his race had loomed great in dim
historic days, and though during the last two centuries no Dauntrey had
done anything notable except lose money, sell land, go bankrupt, figure
in divorce cases or card scandals, and marry actresses, they had never
in their degeneration lost that charm which, in Charles II's day, had
won from a pretty Duchess the nickname of the "darling Dauntreys.
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