The Corner House by Fred M. White

On the whole, Gordon Bruce was persuaded that the world was a pleasant place to live in. He had youth and intellect and ambition that looked likely to be satisfied. Two years before he had recklessly ventured his small capital on a suite of ground floor rooms in Duke street and for some little time he had had a hard struggle to keep up appearances, and pay the instalments as they became due on this somewhat showy furniture.

But it had all come right in the end. He had had a little luck, but his great good fortune, or so it seemed, was when he had been called in to attend little Mamie Lalage. The Countess was just beginning to swim then upon the high tide of popularity. That the woman in her passionate, headstrong way had fallen in love with him Bruce never dreamt. It was only Hetty's woman's eyes and woman's instinct that had found the truth.