Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
And I'd like her to be a good sailor." Larssen smiled at the naïve requirement. "Is that very important?" "Yes. You see, I want her to live with us on a yacht, and some women are so ill whenever they go on board a boat." "Which do you like best: the country, or a big city, or the sea?" "The sea the sea! I hate a big city.
When Rivière at length reached Hampstead Heath, it was to find that the shipowner had just left the house. Rivière explained to the butler that it was very important he should reach Larssen without delay, and his personality impressed the servant as that of a visitor of standing. He therefore told Rivière what he knew.
Or rather, Mrs Matheson wants it." "Who is Mr John Rivière?" This came as a fresh surprise to Lars Larssen, and made him doubly anxious to discover the man. Why all this mystery surrounding him? "I understand from Mrs Matheson that Mr Rivière is her husband's half-brother. Lives somewhere around Paris." "Strange! I've never heard of him myself. I'll make enquiries if you'll wait a moment."
Over the 'phone Larssen and his secretary had discussed the various answers; rejected some of them; wired for confirmatory details in respect of others. Provincial hotel-keepers and railway guards were so keenly "on the make" that they were ready to swear to identity on the slenderest basis of fact.
It was Lars Larssen. Rivière stopped involuntarily. It was as though his antagonist had divined his presence and had come boldly forward to meet him. And, indeed, that was not far from the fact. Larssen, waiting alone in the drawing-room, had had one of his strange intuitive impulses to throw wide the curtain and look out into the night. Such an impulse he never opposed.
To be dependent on a woman's mood, a woman's whim, would be Larssen's position. It galled him to the quick. The seconds that slipped by while Matheson considered were minute-long to him. If only Matheson would weaken and propose compromise! Larssen uttered no word of persuasion one way or another. He knew that, if his desire could be attained, it would be attained through silence.
Larssen knew that his point was won, and long experience had taught him to close an interview as soon as he had carried conviction. "I won't tire you any longer," he said, rising. "I just want to say this: you're big. You're the finer woman by far, but she is his wife." The trial at Nîmes proved a wearisome, sordid affair, and its result was a foregone conclusion.
Looking out into the night, the shipowner could not see Rivière, who had stopped motionless in the shadow of a giant box clipped to the shape of a peacock standing on a broad pedestal. Rivière waited. Presently Larssen turned abruptly as though someone had entered the room. A smile of welcome was on his lips. Olive swept in, close-gowned in black with silvery scales.
The letter was in handwriting, and had not been press-copied. Larssen noted that point at once with satisfaction. But the letter itself gave him uneasiness. It explained nothing of Matheson's motives. From the 'phone conversation with Olive, it was clear that she had no suspicion that her husband wanted to withdraw from the Hudson Bay deal.
It affected directly fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen. For that reason Rivière had refused to lend his name to a scheme under which Lars Larssen would hold the reins of control. He knew the ruthlessness of the man and his overweening lust of power, which had passed the bounds of ordinary ambition and had become a Napoleonic egomania.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking