Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III SIR ARTHUR GERARDINE was stretched in a bamboo chair on the white terrace overlooking the garden, taking his ease luxuriously. He had had his shampoo after his ride, he had had tea, and had started his second cheroot. It was growing delightfully cool. He had the conviction of leaving a well- spent day behind him; and now, an immaculately conscienced, immaculately attired English gentleman of importance, felt himself entitled to his virtuous relaxation. He was perilously near the sixties, but young looking for his age in spite of his Oriental experience ; handsome still, with a smile that, upon first appearance, was found irresistibly fascinating; a genial easy manner—a way with him, in fact, that seemed to promise the utmost good-fellowship. It was only after experience that people felt the steel behind the velvet glove. ' Uncle Arthur,' Aspasia one day averred in an irrepressible burst of frankness, ' is the sort of man the more you know him the less you like him.' No one would have been more surprised than Sir Arthur himself had he been told that he was a tyrant.Yet very soon those who were brought into contact with him discovered what a domineering spirit dwelt behind that sweet smile; how, without ever departing from a form of speech and manner that, with his own family was almost always caressing, with the rest of the world affable, no human being had ever been able to move him from the prosecution of his own purpose. Such a character, combined with a mighty intellect, would have been an enormous power for good. Unfortunately it was upon the slightest premises and with limited reasoning faculties that Sir Arthur formed his unalterable views of life. One of the problems that had most puzzled Aspasia, since unexpected family misfortunes had driven her...