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It seemed unbelievable that such could be the case, and yet, too, it seemed almost equally unbelievable that this beautiful girl was the same disheveled, half naked, little sprite who skipped nimbly among the branches of the trees as they ran and played in the lazy, happy days of the past. It could not be that her memory held more of the past than did her new appearance.
"But I am not a tramp, I assure you, Madam," said Tom, politely. "Huh! ye look it," declared the woman, without any politeness at all. And the boy did look rather dilapidated. He had gotten more than a little wet in the first of the shower, and he had pawed around among the "internal arrangements" of the balky auto to such purpose, that he was disheveled and oil-streaked from head to foot.
A man, unseen before, came crashing through the willows on the side of the ridge. He leaped the stream with the spring of a wild horse. He was big and broad, with disheveled hair, keen, hard face, and wild, gray eyes. Helen's sight almost failed her; her head whirled dizzily; it was as if her heart had stopped beating and was become a cold, dead weight.
She pushed her shiny glasses to the end of her sharp, little nose and over them surveyed the disheveled maiden before her. "What are you doing?" she asked crisply. Arethusa turned her glowing face to her aunt, but without pausing in her dance. "Oh, this glorious storm, Aunt 'Liza! Miss Eliza waved her hand. "You need not answer. I can see quite plainly, for myself, it is something foolish.
"... There were hundreds of tatterdemalians of all nations in various uniforms and smoking vile cigarettes, lounging carelessly around.... In a little while a dozen prisoners issued from a small guardhouse in one corner of the enclosure and were conducted at the point of the bayonet to the spot where I stood.... The officer of this firing squad looked viciously at me and ordered me to 'fall in.... We were then marched to the log wall about fifty paces to the left of the guardhouse and commanded to 'about face.... When we did so we saw a firing squad of eighteen men in command of a Sergeant who gave the order 'Prepare to fire!... At this point the officer stepped forward and, addressing me personally, said: 'Do you know of any reason why you should not be shot for participating in the abduction of the Imperial family?... This was a puzzler.... I was innocent enough of such an accusation, BUT the officer before me looked about as much like a Royalist as I in my present disheveled condition looked like a member of the French Cabinet.... If I denied my guilt I felt certain of a bullet in my heart from such an ugly, unkempt mob.... Glancing at my apparel I looked fit to be one of their number, so I said courageously: 'I am PROUD to say that I am the ringleader who engineered the whole business!..."
It was as though Nature had grown her forest within the confines of a field embraced by an imaginary hedge. There were no outskirts, no dwindling away. It ended in one clean-cut line. And beyond lay the rampart hills, fringed and patched with disheveled bluff, split by rifts and yawning chasms.
Imbert took over the Cedar Fork ranch and store that little trade center outside the reservation gate where a disheveled group of landseekers had faced a new dawn rising upon the Strip. And Ida Mary, who so loved the land, came at last to make it her permanent home. Steady, practical and resourceful it was such women the West needed.
"You do not believe what you say," she answered, flattered by his violence. "Then give me proof that you are mine," said the disheveled poet. Just at that moment Stanislas came up unheard by either of the pair. He beheld Lucien in tears, half reclining on the floor, with his head on Louise's knee.
They would crawl again like spiders through his brain. Breasts like little blind faces raised in prayer. Her body fluttering like a rich curtain before the door of enchantments. These were still his. "Tomorrow, Rita," he murmured aloud to his thoughts. A figure stirred on the couch. She had watched him come in, his hair disheveled, his body dragging. Her eyes had followed him as he sat down.
With a little gasp she turned to work her way through the close-packed crowd. It was an actual physical struggle, from which she emerged disheveled, breathless, uncomfortably warm, and minus her handkerchief, but she had gained the comparative quiet of the side street, and she made the short distance that lay between the Avenue and her hotel a matter of little more than a minute.
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