Part 35 (1/2)

Olwen persisted. ”For the umpteenth time, as Mr. Ellerton would say, that man doesn't care two-pence about me, Golden.”

”Just because he hasn't proposed?” smiled Golden as she took the last word. ”But he will. Watch out for it. Good night, dear.”

The heavy furs lifted to her gesture as she turned, then swung away under the stars towards the South.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHARM REMEMBERED

”A is happy, oh, so happy!

A is happy, B is not.”

Gilbert.

The words of Golden remained with her friend all the way back to Wembley Park, down the Drive of little red-roofed villas, and up the short-flagged path between the standard rose-bushes that led to her Aunt's front door.

Olwen took her latch-key from her bag and let herself in; as she did so she heard the voice of the Aunt from the sitting-room, ”Is that you, dear?”

”Yes! I'll be down in a minute,” she called back, and ran straight upstairs to the bedroom with the pink-curtained window that overlooked the back lawn.

She wanted to be alone for a moment or so. She had just told the Sunburst Girl that what she wanted was amus.e.m.e.nt, but what she would have liked now would have been solitude.

Why had Golden unsettled her again like this, when she had been getting along so cheerfully?

She sat down on the edge of the springy bra.s.s-railed bed drawn up against the window. It was open, and the breeze stirred in the curtain behind her head, full of uneasy thought.... As she drew the hat-pins from her head she glanced restlessly about her room, bright, girlishly pink-and-white, with the atmosphere of a room that had been lived in happily enough. Mechanically Olwen's eyes fell upon the dressing-table, upon the crystal powder-box, upon the signed photograph of Professor Howel-Jones--about the frame of which there was twisted a long piece of pink ribbon, sewn to----

Why, it was that half-forgotten Charm of her days in France!

Half scornfully she smiled now at the memories that it brought to her.

It seemed another Olwen that she remembered, poring over typewritten directions for the use of that Charm.... Fancy an Olwen who believed in that! What a simple way out of the problems of Love, to wear a mascot and to have everything happen that one could wis.h.!.+

This did happen to some people, Olwen mused. To Golden van Huysen it had come without the help of any talisman. Golden possessed within her all that quality of Charm of which that ”inventor” claimed to have found the secret. She was one of the lucky people who hold that secret without knowing what it is....

But as for materializing it into something that might be annexed and worn----well, thought the new and more sophisticated Olwen, what had been the success of that, so far? Half laughing now, she considered it.

That other, romantic little Olwen had (in her first enthusiasm!) written to that newspaper address for more of the Charm.

No answer had been vouchsafed to her.

Therefore her experiments had been limited to four. She had planted out her Charm upon four people: Miss Agatha Walsh, Mrs. Cartwright, little Mr. Brown, and herself.

With what results?

This older, wiser Olwen ticked them off now on her fingers.

_One_, Agatha Walsh--successful. She had become engaged to her Gustave and was perfectly happy.