United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Monty's words were ringing back in his ears. After all, pleasures could be bought but happiness! "And you," he said, "you too think that these things you have mentioned are the things most to be desired in life?" A certain restraint crept into her manner. "Yes," she answered simply. "I have been told," he said, "that you have given up these things to live your life differently.
He fell desperately in love with Peggy Gray on sight, and with all the composure of a potentate who had never been crossed he sent for Brewster the next day and told him to "send her around" and he would marry her. Monty's blood boiled furiously for a minute or two, but he was quick to see the wisdom of treating the proposition diplomatically.
Nevertheless he accepted curds that had been touched by gipsy fingers, and ate greedily, in confirmation of Monty's diagnosis; and after a few minutes he laid his head on a folded goat-skin in the corner, and fell asleep. Then Monty sent a servant to his own quarters for some prized possession that he mentioned in a whisper behind his hand.
But Tom, stalking slowly into the cabin, sprang after a moment's hesitation into Monty's bunk, and purring loudly in a hoarse voice, as one by whom the accomplishment of purring had long been neglected, gently and tentatively licked the man's face, and kneaded his throat with two soft and caressing paws. A vast sob shook both Monty and the cat.
There were the lighters, crowded with men, pushing off from the beach to the waiting boat. "You could get off on any one of those lighters," said I to Monty. "Why don't you go?" "Why, because we'll leave this old place together." After he said this I must have fallen from sheer weariness into a half-sleep. The next thing I remember was Monty's saying: "Look alive, Rupert! We're moving now."
"I shall take this one," he answered, laying a respectful hand on Monty's sleeve. "Effendi, you are an Eenglis lord. Be your life and comfort on my head, but I need a hostage for my nation's sake. You others I admit the urgency shall hunt the missionary lady. If I have this one" again he touched Monty "I know well you will come seeking him! You, effendi, you understand my necessity?"
"I hate to be stared at, and 'observed' for somebody else's benefit." "Monty's a pest!" Miss Judy exploded wrathfully. "I don't see why father ever told him he could come. He's under no obligations to him we're only third cousins, and Monty considers us far, far beneath him at best. But you know how father is hospitality with a capital H. So we're doomed to a visitation from Monty."
Monty's calls were of frequent occurrence. Mr. Hungerford and his erstwhile chum did not speak to each other at all now. But at receptions and teas and dances and musicals and committee meetings one or the other was on hand at Miss Dott's elbow. And Gertrude was very gracious to them both; not more to one than the other, but exceptionally kind and agreeable to each.
Roger, the youngest, a smart little chap of nine, followed in the wake of his brothers, poking interfering fingers into Monty's chemical messes, or acting scout for Neale's escapades. At the end of twelve hours Diana felt that she knew them perfectly, and had shaken down into a place of her own amongst them.
The camp cat a ragged, disreputable animal, who owned no master, and rejected all friendly advances stood in the door of Monty's cabin, with an interrogative tail pointing to the zenith and a friendly arch in his shabby back. Monty had often tried to make friends with the cat, but Tom had repulsed him as coldly as the miners themselves.
Word Of The Day