Fifty Candles (Expanded Edition). Earl Derr Biggers

Чтение книги онлайн.

      “Your husband seems in a gay humor tonight,” I remarked to Carlotta Drew. She nodded, but said nothing. “Probably the effect of San Francisco,” I went on. “I’ve always heard of it as a merry town. Life and color and romance—”

      “And dozens of beautiful girls,” put in Mary Will.

      “I don’t see them.”

      “Wait till the fog lifts,” she answered.

      Henry Drew was again at the door. He ordered the driver to stop at my hotel, then popped back into his seat. In his hand he carried a small package.

      “Candles for the party,” he laughed. “Fifty little pink candles.”

      Fifty! I stared at him there in that dim-lit car. Fifty—why, the old boy must be seventy if he was a day. Did he hope by this silly ruse to win back his middle age, in our eyes at least? Or wait a minute! Was he only fifty, after all? If rumor were true, he had lived a wild, reckless life. Perhaps that life had played a trick upon him—had made his fifty look like seventy.

      We drew up before my hotel, and Hung Chin-chung was instantly on the sidewalk with my bags.

      “I’ll send the car for you at seven,” Drew said. “We’ll have a merry party. Don’t fail me.”

      I thanked him, and amid muttered au revoirs the car went on its way. Standing on the curb, I stared after it. This was incredible! My first night back on American soil, the night I had been dreaming of for four years—and I was to spend it celebrating the birthday of my bitterest enemy! But there was Mary Will. She had dismissed me forever, and I was bound to show her she could not do that.