Читать книгу Officer 666 - Barton Wood Currie - Страница 11

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“Now there is no use in your arguing, Sadie––I love him and I have given him my promise.”

The two cousins were alone again speeding up Fifth avenue in an automobile, a long-bodied foreign car that had been put at the disposal of Mrs. Burton by the New York agent of Mr. Hogg. The Omaha suitor for the hand of the fair Helen had also thrown in a red-headed French chauffeur, which is travelling a bit in the matter of chauffeurs. But as he understood only automobile English it was a delightful arrangement for Helen and Sadie, and permitted them absolute freedom of speech while riding behind him.

“If I had only known him longer, or had been introduced to him differently,” sighed Sadie.

“But haven’t I known all about him for years?” protested Helen Burton. “Of course, we were only school girls when he made that wonderful rescue at Narragansett Pier. Don’t you remember how we rushed down to the beach to see him, but got there just too late? He had gone out to his yacht or 29 something. Oh, it was just splendid, Sadie. And he is so wonderfully modest about it. Why, when I reminded him of his heroism he pretended to have forgotten all about it. Just imagine Mr. Hogg forgetting a thing like that! Do you know what Jabez Hogg would do under similar circumstances, Sadie Burton? Well, I’ll tell you––he’d hire the biggest hall in Omaha and reproduce the whole thing with moving pictures as an advertisement for his beef canneries.”

The young girl had worked herself into a passion and was making savage little gestures with her clenched fists.

“But what I can’t understand, Helen dear, is why a man like Travers Gladwin should make such a mystery of himself and try to avoid introducing you to his friends. I am sure,” persisted Sadie, despite the gathering anger in her companion’s eyes, “that Aunt Elvira would not object to him. You know she is just crazy to break into the swim here in New York, and the Gladwins are the very best of people. I think it wouldn’t take much to urge her even to throw over Mr. Hogg for Gladwin, if you’d only let her take charge of the wedding.”

“Nothing of the sort,” denied Helen hotly. “Aunt Elvira is bound on her solemn word of honor to Mr. Hogg. She will fight for him to the last ditch, though she knows I hate him.”

“Don’t you think, Helen,” said the younger girl, 30 more soberly, “that you are simply trying to make yourself look at it that way? I know Mr. Hogg isn’t a pretty man and he has an awful name, but”–––

“There is no but about it, Sadie Burton. I have given my word to Travers Gladwin and I am going to elope with him to-night. I packed my trunk this morning and gave the porter $10 to take it secretly to the Grand Central Station. Travers told me just how to arrange it. Oh, there’s his house now, Sadie; the big white one on the corner. It just thrills me to go by it. On our way back from Riverside Drive we must stop there. I must leave word that auntie insists on our going to the opera and that I won’t be able to get to him at the time we agreed.”

“Oh, I do wish something would turn up and prevent it,” cried Sadie, almost in tears.

“You horrid little thing!” retorted Helen. “It is dreadful of you to talk like that when you know how much I care for him.”

“It isn’t that I don’t think you care for him,” returned Sadie with trembling lip. “It’s something inside of me that warns me. All this secrecy frightens me. I can’t understand why a man of Travers Gladwin’s wealth and social position would want to do such a thing.”

“But we both have tried to tell you,” insisted Helen, “that there is an important business reason for it.”

“He didn’t tell what that reason was,” persisted 31 the tearfully stubborn cousin. “You admitted he didn’t give you any definite reason at all.”

Helen Burton stamped her foot and bit her lip. By this time the big touring car was gliding through the East Drive of Central Park with the swift, noiseless motion that denotes the highest development of the modern motor vehicle. Fully a mile of the curving roadway had slid under the wheels of the car before Helen resumed the conversation with the sudden outburst:

“You don’t doubt for an instant, Sadie, that he is a gentleman!”

Sadie made no reply.

“His knowledge of painting and art is simply wonderful. At that art sale, where we met, he knew every painting at a glance. He didn’t even have to look for the signatures. You know, if it hadn’t been for him I would have bought that awful imitation Fragonard and just thrown away two months of my allowance. Sadie Burton, he is the cleverest man I ever met. He has travelled everywhere and knows everything, and I love him, I love him, I love him!” In proof of which the charming young woman burst into tears and took refuge in her vast muff.

This sentimental explosion was too much for tender-hearted Sadie. She gave way completely and swore not to breathe another word in opposition to the elopement. And as she felt her beloved cousin’s body shaken with sobs, she forced herself to go into 32 ecstasies over Travers Gladwin’s manly beauty and god-like intellect. In her haste to soothe she went to extravagant lengths and cried:

“And he must have looked heavenly in his bathing suit when he made that wonderful rescue.”

Down fell Helen’s muff with as much of a crash as a muff could make and she turned upon her companion the most profoundly shocked expression of a bride-about-to-be.

“Sadie,” she reproved stiffly, “you have gone far enough.”

Whereupon it was Sadie’s turn to seek the sanctuary of tears.

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