United States or Sweden ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He told me that Max himself was anything but as serene as he looked and had been dosing with bromide to steady his nerves." Daisy broke into a laugh. "No, you certainly shouldn't have told me that! How mean of Sir Kersley! Still, it's nice to know that Max is a little human now and then. I shall like him better now. And so I don't mind telling you something in return.
She seemed to be trying to grasp a situation that eluded her. "It was." Max answered with a return to his customary brevity; his tone was not without bitterness. "Kersley was merciful enough to think of the next generation. He was a doctor, and he knew that hereditary madness is the greatest evil save one in the world. Therefore he sacrificed his happiness."
Max made a gesture expressive of indifference on that point. "People who form the drug habit are seldom over-squeamish in other respects," he said. "He has certainly hastened matters, but he is not responsible for the evil itself. That has been germinating during the whole of her life." "And that was why Sir Kersley jilted her mother?" Olga spoke in a low, detached voice.
"It would be a terrible thing for Olga if some day after they were married she remembered, and he were in ignorance of it." Again Max's hand pressed his friend's shoulder, but this time the pressure was one of warning. "Kersley," he said, "I've been into all that. I've weighed every possible contingency that might arise. And I have decided against telling Noel.
Kersley on the other hand was so confident that he practically hoofed me out of England. He wants a married partner, you know, so perhaps he was not altogether disinterested." Again the complacent note sounded in Max's voice. Olga's fingers closed tightly on his hand. "Is that why you are so anxious to get married?" she asked, in a muffled voice.
You were very handsome in those days, weren't you?" "Was I?" said Sir Kersley. "Yes. That's why I kept you. There was a bit of your hair with it, but I burnt that." Violet's brows knitted suddenly. "My mother was handsome too," she said. "I wonder why you jilted her!" Sir Kersley made a slight movement, so slight that it seemed almost involuntary.
"Will, did he really? How like him!" "Yes. Sir Kersley told me. But he added that it is a well-known fact that brides never faint, so Jim's precautions were quite unnecessary. He also said But perhaps it's hardly fair to tell you that!" "What?" said Daisy eagerly. "Of course tell me! Tell me at once, Will!" Will smiled again. "Well, if I must!
"You don't seem to have noticed what an excellent confidant I make," he said. "Ah, I know you are safe." There was conviction in Max's tone. "But Kersley is such a reserved chap. And that ancient affair ruined his life." "I gathered that," said Nick. "As a matter of fact, I knew a little of the affair before we met. He had been a doctor in my old regiment.
"If you want to know what sort of animal I am," he said, his eyes going direct to hers, "if you want to know if I am worthy of a woman's confidence in short, if I'm a white man or the other thing, ask Kersley Whitton. For he is the only person in the world who knows."
But we won't count on it too much or we may find ourselves crying for the moon, which is the silliest amusement I know. How do you like Sir Kersley Whitton?" "Oh, very much. You heard about about Violet's mother having been engaged to him, I suppose?" "He told me himself," said Nick. "What did he tell you, Nick?" Nick hesitated momentarily. "He spoke in confidence," he said then.
Word Of The Day