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Updated: June 18, 2025
She was pleasanter in manner, too, as well as in appearance; and Annesley's heart which had difficulty in hardening itself for long was touched by the Countess's thanks for the invitation. "You are so happy and wrapped up in each other, I didn't expect you to give a thought to me," the beautiful woman said.
She felt as a young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of Christianity. Such a maiden could not have been quite sure whether the story were true or a fable; whether the lion would destroy her with a blow or crouch at her feet. But Annesley's lion neither struck nor crouched.
"You don't know what it means to be asked down here, after so many lonely days in town, and to find that you and Don are going to give me some new friends." This note, which Knight also had struck in explaining the Countess's "heart's desire," was the right note to enlist Annesley's sympathy. One might have thought that both had guessed this.
And then there was, of course, the breakfast of which I, for one, ate very little and the speechifying afterwards, and what not; and then the happy couple retired for a time, appearing again in travelling attire; then there was the half-laughing, half-tearful "good-bye," the descent of all hands in a body to the door, where Annesley's handsome travelling-carriage and four stood in readiness; then more good-byes; and finally the departure, in the midst of a perfect storm of cheers and old shoes all in regular order.
His "veni, vidi, vici," was confined to his own bosom. As they rode home together there came to be a little crowd of men round Thoroughbung, giving him the praises that were his due. But one by one they fell off from Annesley's side of the road. He soon felt that no one addressed a word to him. He was, probably, too prone to encourage them in this.
The door behind him opened softly and a small gray-headed man peered into the room. "Mr. Annesley, if I might take the liberty " "Ah, MacNab?" Samuel Annesley swung round promptly. "I trust, sir, I do not intrude?" "'Intrude, man? Why?" "Oh, nothing, sir," answered the little man vaguely, with a dubious glance at Mr. Annesley's eyes.
The Nelson Smiths took passage not on one of the great floating palaces patronized by millionaires, but on an obscure, cheap little ship, which bore out the gossip about the man's losses. As a matter of fact, however, they chose that way of going by Annesley's desire. It would have been Knight's way to vanish in a blaze of glory, as the setting sun plunges behind the horizon after a gorgeous day.
The boy became a bit embarrassed; hesitating, before he went on: "The Hakima used to speak to her whenever she passed Miss Annesley's bungalow; and now she's not there to do it." Horace waved his hand to Mitha Baba's mahout; and the mahout shouted something in a dialect Skag did not know.
In the meantime our lads had been anything but idle. With the activity of so many cats they had scuttled away aloft, laying out upon the yards, and casting off the gaskets in a style which must have done Mr Annesley's heart good, and which, to a moral certainty, considerably astonished the Frenchmen on board the surrounding ships and in the batteries.
"For goodness' sake, look at your reservations, and see if you're in the same car!" George Mason pulled out his tickets. "We're in a boudoir car all the way," he said. "We start in one called 'Elena. After Chicago we're in 'Alvarado." Knight followed suit, not ungraciously, though without enthusiasm. Annesley's heart was tapping like a hammer in her breast. She felt giddy.
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