Читать книгу Anybody's Pearls - Footner Hulbert - Страница 13
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ОглавлениеGreatorex, having left Dick alone at the table for a moment or two, returned upstairs bringing a girl with him. At the first sight of her Dick’s heart began to beat. It was the lady of the photograph. She was very tall and slender, and of all the boyish heads there, hers was the most haughtily borne. Her head moved slightly when she walked, like a swan’s. Her short, straight hair which quaintly framed her face, was like a blackbird’s wing, and she was dressed in unrelieved black. A black swan. She eschewed rouge; her face was tinted the palest shade of bistre in which her mouth bloomed like a crimson flower.
She acknowledged Dick with the slightest of bows, and sat down without looking at him. A silence fell on them all. Greatorex was sulky, and for once Dick’s ready tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. The girl’s hoity-toity air overpowered him. She was no countess, but she gave herself more than the airs of one. Dick did not believe, either, that she was Greatorex’s sister. They sat side by side opposite him, and no resemblance was to be discovered. Moreover, Greatorex was jealous.
Fortunately the tongue-tied Dick knew the language of the dance, and when the music started, he asked her. She stood up languidly, still pointedly avoiding a glance at him, and yielded herself to his embrace. She smelled of—ah! what was it? Dick thought of all the most delicious scents he knew; honeysuckle; linden blossoms; the flower of the grape.
When they became lost in the dancing throng she lifted her face with a slow smile that caused Dick’s pulses to leap.
“So this is what you’re like!” she drawled.
“What were you expecting?” he asked, grinning.
“When I came in everybody was looking at me,” she murmured. “And so I couldn’t let my real feelings show.”
“What were your real feelings?”
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she whispered, pressing his shoulder under her hand.
Dick drew her closer to him. She made no resistance.
“Ah! how wonderful it is to find a real man!” she breathed.
Dick had heard this sort of talk on the other side of the ocean. He knew quite well that it was all in the day’s work to her, yet it intoxicated him too. Under her airs, the essential woman was so sweet! While she made her eyes languorous for his benefit, he could see a little imp sitting in their depths who was sizing him up with a cool interest. These black eyes were not sharp and shallow like Greatorex’s. It would have been more prudent for Dick to play the game with her, but his blood was carrying him away. He desired to quarrel with this girl in order to make her natural.
Thus later, when she said in that delicious English drawl of hers: “It’s one of the penalties of one’s position that one must wear a mask,” Dick answered rudely:
“Oh, come off!”
She drew her head back sharply. The delicately pencilled eyebrows went up into two points.
“You’re no more of a Countess than I am,” said Dick. “But you’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever seen.”
She held herself as far as possible away from him. “I think you’d better take me back to my brother,” she said stiffly.
“And he’s not your brother, either,” said Dick. “He’s sore because you’re dancing with me.”
She said no more. They danced on. She refused to look at Dick. Evidently her instructions did not cover this emergency, and she was at a loss how to handle the barbarian from the West.
Ah! but she was sweet! “Don’t misunderstand me,” Dick whispered warmly. “It’s because I like you so much, that I can’t keep up the comedy with you. I want things to be on the level between you and me. It’s your own self that I want to know.”
Her eyes flew up to his in a startled way, and were instantly covered again. How like a child’s eyes they were, when she was startled!
“Dance close again,” Dick pleaded.
She shook her bobbed head.
Dick thought of appealing to her generosity. “I was foolish to give so much away,” he said. “Are you going to tell the men? They don’t take any pains to keep up the comedy of the wicked rascal who stole the family pearls, but they expect me to.”
“I shan’t tell them,” she whispered. “But ... but who are you?”
“Oh, there’s no mystery about me. I’m exactly what I told Greatorex and Abrams I was ... I don’t believe you’re married at all, baby. You haven’t a married look.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, if I had my way you would be.”
“Ah, you’re clever!” she whispered. “Turning the tables on me!”
“Look at me!” said Dick peremptorily. “Look long! There are no curtains on my eyes.”
She dragged her wistful eyes up to his, and they clung there. Then they went slowly down again.
“Now do you think so?” he demanded.
“No, I don’t think so,” she whispered. “But maybe you are.”
She came close to him again, and Dick pressed his warm cheek against her cool one, careless of how Greatorex might scowl. They danced on in a happy dream. Dick forgot pearls, Rulon, and all vexations. His spirits soared. He had found his tongue.
“Ah, you sweet English girl!” he whispered in her ear. “Isn’t it a funny thing? I’ve met hundreds of girls. You never know when you’re going to get yours, do you? There’s something about you—well, it’s impossible to explain, isn’t it? The idea of a kid like you setting up to be a Countess!”
“There are young Countesses,” she said.
“Oh, you got away with it, all right! But I’m not afraid of you! You’re only a kid. You’re a dear, dear kid! When you first came in you had me scared stiff!”
“I was scared, too,” she confessed. “I am always scared. I hide it by looking stupid.”
Dick laughed.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.
“What a question!” said Dick pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Do you think I’d be satisfied with anything less than the prettiest here?”
“Oh!” she said, a little hurt.
“That isn’t what I mean,” said Dick quickly. “My tongue has just got into the habit of joshing. You are the prettiest girl here, but that means nothing to me. It’s something else. When you’re really stirred up, this sort of thing sickens you. I’d like to have you somewhere else. I’d like to have you in the country, sunburned, in an old dress!”
She pressed herself close against him. “Ah, you’re a great dear!” she whispered. “You have such funny thoughts. How did a boy like you get into this?”
“God knows!” said Dick.
Another happy interlude of dancing.
“What do they call you, baby?” murmured Dick.
“Millicent. Silly name, isn’t it?”
“Not when you have it.”
“What’s yours?”
“Dick.”
“That’s just right ... Dear Dick!”
This was said with such a world of sadness that Dick asked sharply: “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing ... I wish ... Oh, never mind! You’re just the sort of boy I’ve dreamed about, Dick.”
“Well, here I am,” said Dick. “And that’s no dream.”
“No! No!” she said. “Confound you, Dick! I shall be unhappy now. You’ve got me all stirred up.”
“Well, give way to it!” said Dick. “It’s glorious! You don’t see me holding back.”
“No, Dick! We’re playing with gunpowder. I shan’t see you again. Don’t say any more, Dick. You must help me play the game. I’ve got to keep my face in this place ...”
“But, Millicent ...!”
Just then the music stopped. They were left standing at the opposite end of the room from Greatorex’s table.
“Walk slowly,” whispered Millicent. “There’s something I want to say.... May not have another chance. Don’t let it appear in your face that I’m saying anything out of the way. Everybody is watching us. You’re the handsomest man in the room, Dick. Can’t you get out of this? Can’t you take the next ship for home?”
“What, and leave you?” said Dick.
“Ah, be serious now! You have got to forget about me. I can’t speak plainly. I’m in deadly earnest. Whichever way this thing goes, don’t you see? there’s nothing in it for you ... they would never ... you’re in danger!”
They were approaching Greatorex, who was regarding them viciously. The monocle hung unregarded against his shirt front.
“Poor Bertie!” she murmured. “He’s out of countenance, too. You’re an upsetting person, Dick.”
“Ah!” whispered Dick with a sudden anxiety; “you couldn’t fall for him! He’s a crook!”
“Well, what are you, Dick?”
She had him there.
She was once more the languid Countess—a Countess of the night clubs. “Thanks awf’ly,” she drawled. “You’re a frightfully good dahncah, Mr. Murray Hill.”
