United States or Belize ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And then, picking up the speaking-tube, I told the wretched man at the wheel. He swung us around; we turned back, and in five minutes more drew up again, according to my direction, not by the Estabrooks' door, but under the spreading limbs of the oak across from the Marburys' ornate residence. "Take some of this, my boy," I said as he crawled, wet and trembling, into the interior.
She was the one who could be depended upon to appreciate the Caruso phonograph record, and the Chinese lantern which Mr. Marbury had brought back as his present from San Francisco. Carol found the Marburys admiring and therefore admirable. This September Sunday evening she wore a net frock with a pale pink lining. A nap had soothed away the faint lines of tiredness beside her eyes.
"Just climb inside there where it is warmer," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute." "Back in a minute?" he repeated as if dazed. "From the Marburys', if you don't mind," I explained. He leaned back against the cushions, disregarding the fact that with every nervous movement water ran from him as from a squeezed sponge.
During her three years of library work several men showed diligent interest in her the treasurer of a fur-manufacturing firm, a teacher, a newspaper reporter, and a petty railroad official. None of them made her more than pause in thought. For months no male emerged from the mass. Then, at the Marburys', she met Dr. Will Kennicott.
"I feel that I must win her all over again. She is as fresh and new and beautiful to me as the day I first saw her. And I love her now as never before!" "Jump into the car, then!" I commanded, and turning to my chauffeur, whispered, "To the Marburys'. Where we were this morning. And what we want is speed!"
"I will call later. You do not need me now and I will step into the Marburys'." "But, Doctor!" cried the young man. I shook my head. "My dear fellow," said I solemnly, "I cannot bear to hear you talk about the respectable Estabrooks!" Our hands met, however, and, I believe, with a warmth that meant more than many words. As I went up the Marburys' steps a minute later, I looked up.
A good diagnostician has in him the material for an immortal police inspector. I speak modestly, and yet I must say that the next morning proved that I was not mistaken in these theories. Before nine o'clock I had arrived at the Marburys'. The banker himself opened the door. "Doctor!" he cried, his face drawn out of its mask of eternal shrewdness and suspicion by a beaming smile, "what can I say?
He couldn't, under the circumstances, as I'll show you presently, aside from the medical ethics of the case. Aitken was the family physician of the Marburys." Kennedy glanced at the note. "One is dead. Others are dying," he read. "Who are the others? Who else is stricken?"
"Oh, I forgot your patient," said he, with a twitching mouth. "But, for God's sake, don't keep me waiting long!" I shook my head in answer; then ran, rather than walked, up the Marburys' steps; indeed, that night taught me how active a corpulent old codger can be if the need comes. Miss Peters evidently had been at the window in her night vigil, watching the storm; she opened the door.
IT was a frail and blue and lonely Carol who trotted to the flat of the Johnson Marburys for Sunday evening supper. Mrs. Marbury was a neighbor and friend of Carol's sister; Mr. Marbury a traveling representative of an insurance company. They made a specialty of sandwich-salad-coffee lap suppers, and they regarded Carol as their literary and artistic representative.
Word Of The Day