Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
His eye was badly swollen and discoloured, he looked wretchedly ill, but he managed to smile at Saltash, who took him by the shoulder and made him face the light. "What are you doing in here, you scaramouch? Didn't I tell you to lie still? Here he is, Larpent! What do you think of him? A poor sort of specimen, eh?" "What's his name?" said Larpent. "Toby Barnes, sir," supplied the boy promptly.
"I have never had an infant to look after before," he said "And I have to make my report to Larpent." "Ah! How is he?" questioned Maud. He shot her a swift glance. "Is the child anxious?" "Not in the least. I don't believe she ever thinks about him. She told me on the first day that she hardly knows him." Saltash laughed. "How honest of her! Well, he's getting better, but he won't be well yet.
Rivers is always ill in London: indeed, papa says it would be the death of him; but Lady Leonora Langdale thinks it dreadful that Meta should not go to all the gaieties; and last year, when Mrs. Larpent was gone, she insisted on her coming to stay with her for the season.
"It's a magnificent place!" said Bunny stoutly. "It's completely thrown away on Charlie of course, but I love every stone of it." "What a pity it doesn't belong to you!" commented Sheila. "I wonder where you will live when you are married." Bunny flushed a little. "We're not marrying at present, but I'm hoping to stick to my job when we do." "Oh, are you? Does Miss Larpent like that idea?"
She's been at school in France, and Larpent was bringing her home in the yacht when we went down. She's nineteen a jolly little thing half French. Larpent doesn't know what to do with her. He has no people. She quite properly wants to earn her own living. But she's too young yet to fight the world. Larpent's a rover, he'll never settle on land. She's never had any home life, poor kid.
"When I came to her yesterday she told me of a child that had been born to her a child she had loved but had been unable to protect. It was a long story. Spentoli the Italian artist knows it from beginning to end. You know Spentoli?" "I know him," said Saltash. "Spentoli is a blackguard," Larpent said, "the sort that is born, not made afterwards. He has painted Rozelle over and over again.
"There's no question of that now," said Larpent quietly. "Your home is with your husband, not with me." Toby flinched a little. "My home isn't anywhere then," she said. "When I left him, it was for good." "Why did you leave him?" said Larpent. Toby's lips set in a firm line, and she made no answer. Larpent waited a few moments; then: "It's no matter for my interference," he said.
He had departed in his abrupt way for his first pleasure cruise in The Blue Moon, taking no friend, save the ever-present Larpent, to relieve the monotony. No one knew whither they were bound, or if the voyage were to be long or short. He dropped out of his circle as a monkey drops from a tree, and beyond a passing wonder at his movements no one questioned either motive or intention.
The crowd surged forward. Maud, with Saltash on her right and Larpent on her left, stood by the rail. She held up a bottle that gleamed golden in the sun. Saltash was laughing. He stood bareheaded, his dark face alight. Toby's eyes went to him in a single flashing glance and remained fixed. Bunny, looking at her, was for the moment curiously moved.
Up in the gallery Toby drew a deep breath as of one coming out of a trance, and turned towards the man beside her. The light had been turned on in the salon below, and it struck upwards on her face, showing it white and weary. "So she has found another victim!" she said. "It seems so," said Saltash. She looked at him in the dimness. "Did you know that that Captain Larpent was with her?"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking