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. IN A HOUSE IN CURZON STREET. Armed with a defiant scepticism, and yet conscious of an unusual interest and expectation, George Brand drove up to Curzon Street on the following evening. As he jumped out of his hansom, he inadvertently glanced at the house. " Conspiracy has not quite built us a palace as yet," he said to himself. The door was opened by a little German maidservant, as neat and round and rosy as a Dresden china shepherdess, who conducted him upstairs, and announced him at the drawing-room. It was not a large room; but there was more of colour and gilding in it than accords with the severity of modern English taste; and it was lit irregularly with a number of candles, each with a little green or rose-red shade. Mr. Lind met himat the door. As they shook hands, Brand caught a glimpse of another figure in the room—apparently that of a tall woman dressed all in cream white, with a bunch of scarlet geraniums in her bosom, and another in her raven-black hair. " Not the gay little adventuress, then ? " was his instant and internal comment. " Better contrived still. The inspired prophetess. Obviously not the daughter of this man at all. Hired." But when Natalie Lind came forward to receive him, he was more than surprised ; he was almost abashed. During a second or two of wonder and involuntary admiration, he was startled out of his critical attitude altogether. For this tall and striking figure was in reality that of a young girl of eighteen or nineteen, who had the beautifully formed bust, the slender waist, and the noble carriage that even young Hungarian girls frequently have. Perhaps the face, with its intellectual forehead and the proud and firmly cut mouth, was a trifle too calm and self-reliant for a young girl; but all the softness of ex...