Читать книгу The Dawn of Reckoning - James Hilton - Страница 11

Table of Contents

An hour later Mrs. Monsell came down to the lounge. "I've sent for a doctor and made arrangements with the hotel people," she announced. "I don't think there's much the matter, except her feet, which are badly cut about. By the way, I've found out a bit of her history. Her name's Srolta and some other name that's quite unpronounceable, so I think we shall have to call her Stella. She's been ill-treated by a brutal father, and he wanted to marry her to somebody—she's fifteen, by the way—and she ran off rather than submit...That's the kind she is...No nonsense about her..."

"But, mother, how on earth did you find out all that? You don't know any Hungarian, do you?"

"Not a word of it. But I use my intelligence...I also found out why she didn't come here straight away. She was frightened of being turned off by the hotel people, and when you went out she followed you till she could get a chance of meeting you alone. Of course it was like you to drag her up to the top of a mountain!"

"Do you mean to say that you understood all that too?"

"My dear Philip, as I said before, I used my intelligence. So did the girl—she has plenty—and between us...Perhaps she will encourage you to use yours when we get back to England."

"England?"

"Yes, England. I have decided to take the girl back home with us."

"But why?"

"Well, why not? Am I to understand that you have any objection?"

Philip stared vacantly in front of him, and did not answer for several moments. Then at last he replied: "I have certainly no objection, but the idea surprises me, I must admit. I suppose you have taken a fancy to her?"

"Well?"

He glanced at her with a strange mingling of despair and admiration. She was so capable, so managerial, and, unlike himself, so quick to make decisions of all kinds.

"I prefer the girl," he said, "to the usual sort of souvenir we take home with us. That awful Egyptian sarcophagus last year, for instance...Oh yes, I much prefer the girl..."

Mrs. Monsell smiled.