|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 49
"So am I," Fitzgerald reflected sadly, snatching a vision of the girl's
animated face.
Three days he had ridden into the country with her, or played tennis,
or driven down to the village and inspected the yacht. He had been
lonely so long and this beautiful girl was such a good comrade. One
moment he blessed the prospective treasure hunt, another he execrated
it. To be with this girl was to love her; and whither this pleasurable
idleness would lead him he was neither blind nor self-deceiving. But
with the semi-humorous recklessness which was the leaven of his
success, he thrust prudence behind him and stuck to the primrose path.
He had played with fire before, but never had the coals burned so
brightly. He did not say that she was above him; mentally and by birth
they were equals; simply, he was compelled to admit of the truth that
she was beyond him. Money. That was the obstacle. For what man will
live on his wife's bounty? Suppose they found the treasure (and with
his old journalistic suspicion he was still skeptical), and divided it;
why, the interest on his share would not pay for her dresses. To the
ordinary male eye her gowns looked inexpensive, but to him who had
picked up odd bits of information not usually in the pathway of man, to
him there was no secret about it. That bodice and those sleeves of old
Venetian point would have eaten up the gains of any three of his most
prosperous months.
And Breitmann, dropping occasionally the ash of his cigarette on the
tray, he, too, was pondering. But his German strain did not make it so
easy for him as for Fitzgerald to give concrete form to his thought.
The star, as he saw it, had a nebulous appearance.
M. Ferraud chatted gaily. Usually a man who holds his audience is of
single purpose. The little Frenchman had two aims: one, to keep the
conversation on subjects of his own selection, and the other, to study
without being observed. Among one of his own tales (butterflies) he
told of a chase he once had made in the mountains of the Moors, in
Abyssinia. To illustrate it he took up one of the nets standing in the
corner. In his excitable way he was a very good actor. And when he
swooped down the net to demonstrate the end of the story, it caught on
a button on Breitmann's coat.
"Pardon!" said M. Ferraud, with a blithe laugh. "The butterfly I was
describing was not so big."
Breitmann freed himself amid general laughter. And with Laura's rising
the little after-dinner party became disorganized.
It was yet early; but perhaps she had some thought she wished to be
alone with. This consideration was the veriest bud in growth; still,
it was such that she desired the seclusion of her room. She swung
across her shoulders the sleepy Angora and wished the men good night.
The wire bell in the hall clock vibrated twice; two o'clock of the
morning. A streak of moon-shine fell aslant the floor and broke off
abruptly. Before the safe in the library stood Breitmann, a small tape
in his hand. For several minutes he contemplated somberly the nickel
combination wheel. He could open it for he knew the combination. To
open it would be the work of a moment. Why, then, did he hesitate?
Why not pluck it forth and disappear on the morrow? The admiral had
not made a copy, and without the key he might dig up Corsica till the
crack of doom. The flame on the taper crept down. The man gave a
quick movement to his shoulders; it was the shrug, not of impatience
but of resignation. He saw the lock through the haze of a conjured
face. He shut his eyes, but the vision remained. Slowly he drew his
fingers over the flame.
Yet, before the flame died wholly it touched two points of light in the
doorway, the round crystals of a pair of spectacles.
"Two souls with but a single thought!" the secret agent murmured.
"Poor devil! why does he hesitate? Why does he not take it and be
gone? Is he still honest? _Peste_! I must be growing old. I shall
not ruin him, I shall save him. It is not goot politics, but it is
good Christianity. _Schlafen Sie wohl, Hochwohl geboren_!"
CHAPTER XIII
THE WOMAN WHO KNEW
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|