United States or Mayotte ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Not now" and he closed the volume on the table beside him "But I HAVE been reading that amazing book by the young girl we met at the Deanshires' last night Ena Armitage. It's really a fine piece of work." She was silent. "You didn't take to her, I'm afraid?" he went on "Yet she seemed a charming, modest little person. Perhaps she was not quite what you expected?"
I don't care whether or no your mother hears that I go to the Hands. It's Ena and outside folks I care for, and them only for Ena's sake. She's so proud! And when she gets home from France " "Not a word to her, I promise. Nor to any one outside. But do you know, I believe mother would be glad to hear that you sometimes go to the store? She'd think it was like old times.
I told you I wasn't well. I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling mighty bad." His looks confirmed his words. In the last few moments since the angry flush had passed, the old man's face had faded to a sicklier yellow than Petro had ever seen upon it except one day, long ago, when Peter Rolls, Sr., had tried to be a yachtsman in order to please Ena and the weather had been unkind.
"Does he still 'work with his own hands?" quoted Win at last, feeling half guilty, as if she ought not to ask questions about Peter's father behind Peter's back. But the affairs of the Rolls family seemed to be public property. Mr. Löwenfeld and Miss Seeker both laughed. "I should love," said the latter, "to see Ena Rolls's face if her father did work!
But if Ena had known the mystery of those late evenings she would have been struck with fear the fear which comes of finding out that those we think we know best are strangers to us. Of all the sad millionaires of New York who pin together the pages of certain mysterious life chapters not to be read by eyes at home, perhaps no other had a mystery like that of Peter Rolls.
You talk about nerves, Ena, but, hang it all, it's enough to give anyone the hum to lead the sort of life I've had to lead for the last few years. I'm nothing more nor less than a common adventurer." "Whatever you are," the Princess answered steadily, "you are too old to change your life or the manner of it. One can start again afresh on the other side of forty, but at fifty the thing is hopeless.
Now, in America, she had determined to make the best of a bad bargain by sending the fiery cross through the States. She stayed in her room and jotted down notes. Also, she conscientiously tried to make Mrs. Rolls a suffragette. About most other things she was absent-minded; therefore Ena did not waste gray matter in worrying over the impression that Sea Gull Manor was making on Lady Raygan.
Ena pressed her body against the wall, and Lord Raygan must, perforce, stand by her. "Good-bye!" she cried. "We have to go up again, you know." "We'll sail by, anyhow, and see where you hang out later," Raygan called after the disappearing form in black. "And we'll bring Rolls and my sister." By this time the elevator had emptied itself, save for those bound for the basement and Ena and Rags.
Rolls," she told herself. And the idea seemed to her so original, so filled with possibilities of romance, that it was as soothing to the bruise in her heart as an application of Peter Rolls's Balm of Gilead. She guessed that he had put aside his reserve and told her about the "dryad girl" because Ena had put him up to think that she Eileen had "begun to care."
It was not what Peter senior called practical. Ena, now! There was a girl to be proud of. Father was so proud that pride of his splendid daughter had frozen out or covered with ashes the glow which used to fill his heart at the thought of her. But pride was the right thing! That was what he had worked for: to make of his children a man and woman to be proud of when the top stone was on his pile.
Word Of The Day