Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Daren, I respect you for it. There was a time when I objected to your courting Helen. But I couldn't see into the future. I'm sorry now she broke her engagement to you." "I thank you, Mrs. Wrapp," said Lane, with agitation. "But of course Helen was right. She was too young.... And even if she had been been true to me I would have freed her upon my return." "Indeed. And why, Daren?"
"Mel, all he needed was to be made think," returned Lane. "And that was how I made him do it." "Oh, Daren, I thank you, for mother's sake, for mine I can't tell you how much." "Mel, please don't thank me," he answered. "You understand, and that's enough. Now say you'll marry me, Mel."
Here in an overshadowed bend of the stream a heron rose lumbering from his weedy retreat and winged his slow flight away out of sight; a water wagtail, that cunning sentinel of the brooks, gave a startled tweet! tweet! and went flitting like a gray streak of light round the bend. "Daren, please don't be so energetic," said Mel, nervously. "I'm strong as a horse now. I'm hello! What's that?"
Doctor Bronson cursed in a most undignified and unprofessional manner. Then without further comment he went on and completed the examination. "That'll do," he said, and lent a hand while Lane put on his clothes. It was then he noticed Lane's medal. "Ha! The Croix de Guerre!... Daren, I was a friend of your father's. I know how that medal would have made him feel. Tell me what you did to get it?"
His further impression of Bessy Bell, then, was that she had just fallen in with this older crowd, and sophisticated though she was, had not yet been corrupted. The divination of this heightened his interest. "Well, Daren, you old prune, what'd you think of the toddle?" asked Helen, as she took a cigarette offered by Swann and tipped it between her red lips. "Is that what you danced?"
Then both a blush and a glow made her radiant. "Daren, I'm sixteen to-day. Holt and I are we're engaged I told mother, and expected a row. She was really pleased.... And then seeing you well again. Why, Daren, you've actually got color. Then Holt has been given a splendid business opportunity.... And Oh! it's all too good to be true."
Well, now, if I can slip out o' Falmouth unbeknowns to him, an' win to your father on the Plymouth road, I've heard you say and a little this side of St. Germans " "You might walk over to Penryn and pick up the night coach." Captain Coffin shook his head as he turned out his pockets. "One shilling, lad, an' two ha'pennies. It won't carry me. An' I daren' go home to refit; an' I daren' send you."
Said she could afford to pay her board." "She told me that, too," replied Lane, slowly. "And I'm afraid she meant it." "Leave her alone, Daren." "Poor mother! I'm afraid I'm a a worry to you as well as Lorna," he said, gently, with a hand going to her worn cheek. She said nothing, although her glance rested upon him with sad affection. Lane clambered wearily up to his little room.
She had a heavy, rather good-natured face on which was a smile of greeting. "Daren Lane!" she exclaimed, with fervor, and to his surprise, she kissed him. There was no doubt of her pleasure. Lane's thin armor melted. He had not anticipated such welcome. "Oh, I'm glad to see you, soldier boy. But you're a man now. Daren, you're white and thin.
Lane looked down at her, at her glistening auburn hair, and slender, white, ringed hand clutching the cushions, at her lissom shaking form, at the shapely legs in the rolled-down silk stockings and he felt a melancholy happiness in the proof that he had reached her shallow heart, and in the fact that this was the moment of loss. "Good-bye Helen," he said. "Daren don't go," she begged.
Word Of The Day