In Friendships Guise

In Friendship's Guise

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Title: In Friendship's Guise
Author: Wm. Murray Graydon
Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15965]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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FRIENDSHIP'S GUISE ***

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In Friendship's Guise
BY WM. MURRAY GRAYDON
AUTHOR OF "The Cryptogram," etc.
1899

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER.
I.--The Duplicate Rembrandt
II.--Five Years Afterwards
III.--An Old Friend

IV.--Number 320 Wardour Street
V.--A Mysterious Discussion
VI.--A Visitor from Paris
VII.--Love's Young Dream
VIII.--An Attraction in Pall Mall
IX.--Uncle and Nephew
X.--A London Sensation
XI.--A Mysterious Discovery
XII.--A Cowardly Communication
XIII.--The Tempter
XIV.--The Dinner at Richmond
XV.--From the Dead
XVI.--The Last Card
XVII.--Two Passengers from Calais
XVIII.--Home Again
XIX.--A Shock for Sir Lucius
XX.--At a Night Club
XXI.--A Quick Decision
XXII.--Another Chance
XXIII.--On the Track
XXIV.--A Fateful Decision
XXV.--A Fruitless Errand
XXVI.--A Thunderbolt from the Blue
XXVII.--An Amateur Detective
XXVIII.--A Discovery
XXIX.--The Vicar of Dunwold
XXX.--Run to Earth
XXXI.--Noah Hawker's Disclosure
XXXII.--How the Day Ended
XXXIII.--Conclusion

IN FRIENDSHIP'S GUISE.

CHAPTER I.
THE DUPLICATE REMBRANDT.

The day began well. The breakfast rolls were crisper than usual, the
butter was sweeter, and never had Diane's slender white hands poured
out more delicious coffee. Jack Clare was in the highest spirits as he
embraced his wife and sallied forth into the Boulevard St. Germain,
with a flat, square parcel wrapped in brown paper under his arm. From
the window of the entresol Diane waved a coquettish farewell.
"Remember, in an hour," she called down to him. "I shall be ready by
then, Jack, and waiting. We will lunch at Bignon's--"
"And drive in the Bois, and wind up with a jolly evening," he
interrupted, throwing a kiss. "I will hasten back, dear one. Be sure that
you put on your prettiest frock, and the jacket with the ermine
trimming."
It was a clear and frosty January morning, in the year 1892, and the
streets of Paris were dry and glistening. There was intoxication in the
very air, and Jack felt thoroughly in harmony with the fine weather.
What mattered it that he had but a few francs in his pocket--that the
quarterly remittance from his mother, who dreaded the Channel
passage and was devoted to her foggy London, would not be due for a
fortnight? The parcel under his arm meant, without doubt, a check for a
nice sum. He and Diane would spend it merrily, and until the morrow
at least his fellow-workers at Julian's Academy would miss him from
his accustomed place.
Bright-eyed grisettes flung coy looks at the young artist as he strode
along, admiring his well-knit figure, his handsome boyish features
chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight
tendency to curl, his velvet jacket and flowing tie. Jack nodded and
smiled at a familiar face now and then, or paused briefly to greet a male
acquaintance; for the Latin Quarter had been his little world for three
years, and he was well-known in it from the Boulevard St. Michel to
the quays of the Seine. He snapped his fingers at a mounted cuirassier
in scarlet and silver who galloped by him on the Point Royal, and
whistled a few bars of "The British Grenadiers" as he passed the
red-trowsered, meek-faced, under-sized soldiers who shouldered their
heavy muskets in the courts of the Louvre. The memory of Diane's

laughing countenance, as she leaned from the window, haunted him in
the Avenue de l'Opera.
"She's a good little girl, except when she's in a temper," he said to
himself, "and I love her every bit as much as I did when we were
married a year ago. Perhaps I was a fool, but I don't regret it. She was
as straight as a die, with a will of her own, and it was either lose her
altogether or do the right thing. I couldn't bear to part with her, and I
wasn't blackguard enough to try to deceive her. I'm afraid there will be
a row some day, though, when the Mater learns the truth. What would
she say if she knew that Diane Merode, one of the most popular and
fascinating dancers of the Folies Bergere, was now Mrs. John Clare?"
It was not a cheerful thought, but Jack's momentary depression
vanished as he stopped before the imposing facade of the Hotel
Netherlands, in the vicinity of the Opera. He entered boldly and