Such a one is the hero of Miss MAUD DIVER'S
latest novel, _Strange Roads_ (CONSTABLE); but it is only fair to
say that _Derek Blunt_ (_ne_ Blount), second son of the _Earl of
Avonleigh_, is no prig, but, on the contrary, a very pleasant fellow.
For a protagonist he obtrudes himself only moderately in a rather
discursive story which involves a number of other people who do
nothing in particular over a good many chapters. We are halfway
through before _Derek_ takes the plunge, and then we find, him, not
in the slums of some industrial quarter, but in Western Canada, where
class distinctions are founded less on soap than on simoleons. At the
end of the volume the War has "bruk out," and our hero, apart from
having led a healthy outdoor life and chivalrously married and been
left a widower by a pathetic child with consumption and no morals,
is just about where he started. I say "at the end of the volume," for
there I find a publisher's note to the effect that in consequence
of the paper shortage the further adventures of our hero have been
postponed to a subsequent volume. It is to be entitled _The Strong
Hours_, and will doubtless provide a satisfactory _raison d'etre_ for
all the other people who did nothing in particular in Vol. I.
* * * * *
If you had numbered _Elizabeth_, the heroine of _A Maiden in Malaya_
(MELROSE), among your friends, I can fancy your calling upon her to
"hear about her adventures in the East.
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