{"product_id":"2940012296085","title":"HEIRESS OF DENSLEY WOLD","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn excerpt from the beginning of:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"ADVENTURESS be hanged! She's not an adventuress! She's the loveliest——\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Stop, stop, stop! We know all about that. Your latest always is your loveliest!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Confound you!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, confound me as much as you like. I've been at all the trouble of coming down from town on purpose to see what sort of a scrape you've got yourself into this time——\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ince, if you say another word, I shall forget that you're a decent fellow, that you're devoted to me, and all that bosh, and throw you out of window!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs James Ince was sitting so close to the low bow-window of the sitting-room of the Cowes hotel where his friend, Massey St. Quintin, was staying, that the latter might have carried out his expressed intention with very little difficulty, and as that hot-headed young man was becoming greatly irritated at his friend's want of enthusiasm, Ince retreated hastily to the innermost recesses of the room, with an expression of comical terror upon his thin, intellectual face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe friends offered something of a contrast. James Ince, barrister, living in London on a narrow allowance, and with his way in the world still to make, looked, at two-and-thirty, as grave and as furrowed as a man of forty, an impression which was helped by the fact that he was already somewhat bald.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had dark blue eyes, almost hollow cheeks, and a straight mouth scarcely hidden by a slight black moustache. Thin and spare of frame and with a slight stoop, he had a look of extreme delicacy, which was scarcely borne out by the facts of the case. While Massey St. Quintin, his junior by nearly ten years, slight and boyish of figure and quick of movement, gave an impression of robust health which was almost equally wrong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe younger man, with his fair hair, light eyes, beardless face, and expression peculiarly sweet and winning, might have passed for the son, rather than the contemporary, of the older man, whose close friend he had been from the time, three or four years previously, when Ince had been St. Quintin's tutor before the latter went up to Cambridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSt. Quintin laughed when he saw the rapid retreat of his friend from the window. They had been enjoying the sight of the yachts that lay close to the shore on this perfect July evening, or moved lazily through the water farther out, scarcely helped by a faint breeze. It was but a few days before the Cowes week, and craft of all sizes were gathering together in the neighbourhood of the pretty, old-fashioned, and not over-clean town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSt. Quintin laughed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Touching act of self-denial!\" said he, mockingly. \"To leave Fleet Street in July for a run down here. I could shed tears, Ince, at the depth of your devotion, that I could!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe joke had restored his good humour, if he had ever lost it. But the other wanted to bring back the conversation to the subject they had left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well,\" he admitted, \"there are compensations, even if the journey was inconvenient and tedious. But I had expected to be entertained on the Burmah Girl. Are you living on shore?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, I am at present,\" admitted the young man with a rather conscious expression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInce laughed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I see. Miss Densley is at the hotel, and you can't tear yourself away! I wonder you condescended to dine up here with me! I should have thought, in the circumstances, the table-d'hôte dinner was more attractive.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, you see, Miss Densley doesn't dine at the table-d hôte\" said St. Quintin, ingenuously; she and her governess have a private room.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Governess, eh! Rather an odd thing for a grown-up girl to be staying with a governess at an hotel at Cowes in the season, isn't it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Odd! Not at all,\" retorted St. Quintin, quickly. \"She is an orphan, remember.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"How do you know that, if, as you say, she doesn't speak to strangers?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, the fact is—of course I know it's very undignified to get information in an underhand way, but what's a fellow to do when he can't get it any other way?—my man has struck up a sort of respectful flirtation with Miss Densley's maid, Rose, and he's told me several things that Rose has told him.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What things?\" asked Ince, inquisitorially.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, that she's an heiress, for one thing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInce drew himself up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That about settles it,\" said he. \"People don't go about giving themselves out as heiresses like that—decent people, that is.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSt. Quintin came over to him with his eyes ablaze.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Please don't speak in that way of this lady,\" said he, quietly, \"because I won't stand it....","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145325232368,"sku":"2940012296085","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012296085_p0.jpg?v=1763554614","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012296085","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}