The Greatest Children's Books - Gene Stratton-Porter Edition. Stratton-Porter Gene

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ before I meet Lord O'More.”

      She blinked back the tears and spreading the paper on her knee, read: “After three months' fruitless search, Lord O'More gives up the quest of his lost nephew, and leaves Chicago today for his home in Ireland.”

      She read on, and realized every word. The likeness settled any doubt. It was Freckles over again, only older and well dressed.

      “Well, I must catch you if I can,” muttered the Angel. “But when I do, if you are a gentleman in name only, you shan't have Freckles; that's flat. You're not his father and he is twenty. Anyway, if the law will give him to you for one year, you can't spoil him, because nobody could, and,” she added, brightening, “he'll probably do you a lot of good. Freckles and I both must study years yet, and you should be something that will save him. I guess it will come out all right. At least, I don't believe you can take him away if I say no.”

      “Thank you; and wait, no matter how long,” she said to her driver.

      Catching up the paper, she hurried to the desk and laid down Lord O'More's card.

      “Has my uncle started yet?” she asked sweetly.

      The surprised clerk stepped back on a bellboy, and covertly kicked him for being in the way.

      “His lordship is in his room,” he said, with a low bow.

      “All right,” said the Angel, picking up the card. “I thought he might have started. I'll see him.”

      The clerk shoved the bellboy toward the Angel.

      “Show her ladyship to the elevator and Lord O'More's suite,” he said, bowing double.

      “Aw, thanks,” said the Angel with a slight nod, as she turned away.

      “I'm not sure,” she muttered to herself as the elevator sped upward, “whether it's the Irish or the English who say: 'Aw, thanks,' but it's probable he isn't either; and anyway, I just had to do something to counteract that 'All right.' How stupid of me!”

      At the bellboy's tap, the door swung open and the liveried servant thrust a cardtray before the Angel. The opening of the door created a current that swayed a curtain aside, and in an adjoining room, lounging in a big chair, with a paper in his hand, sat a man who was, beyond question, of Freckles' blood and race.

      With perfect control the Angel dropped Lord O'More's card in the tray, stepped past his servant, and stood before his lordship.

      “Good morning,” she said with tense politeness.

      Lord O'More said nothing. He carelessly glanced her over with amused curiosity, until her color began to deepen and her blood to run hotly.

      “Well, my dear,” he said at last, “how can I serve you?”

      Instantly the Angel became indignant. She had been so shielded in the midst of almost entire freedom, owing to the circumstances of her life, that the words and the look appeared to her as almost insulting. She lifted her head with a proud gesture.

      “I am not your 'dear,'” she said with slow distinctness. “There isn't a thing in the world you can do for me. I came here to see if I could do something—a very great something—for you; but if I don't like you, I won't do it!”

      Then Lord O'More did stare. Suddenly he broke into a ringing laugh. Without a change of attitude or expression, the Angel stood looking steadily at him.

      There was a silken rustle, then a beautiful woman with cheeks of satiny pink, dark hair, and eyes of pure Irish blue, moved to Lord O'More's side, and catching his arm, shook him impatiently.

      “Terence! Have you lost your senses?” she cried. “Didn't you understand what the child said? Look at her face! See what she has!”

      Lord O'More opened his eyes widely and sat up. He did look at the Angel's face intently, and suddenly found it so good that it was difficult to follow the next injunction. He arose instantly.

      “I beg your pardon,” he said. “The fact is, I am leaving Chicago sorely disappointed. It makes me bitter and reckless. I thought you one more of those queer, useless people who have thrust themselves on me constantly, and I was careless. Forgive me, and tell me why you came.”

      “I will if I like you,” said the Angel stoutly, “and if I don't, I won't!”

      “But I began all wrong, and now I don't know how to make you like me,” said his lordship, with sincere penitence in his tone.

      The Angel found herself yielding to his voice. He spoke in a soft, mellow, smoothly flowing Irish tone, and although his speech was perfectly correct, it was so rounded, and accented, and the sentences so turned, that it was Freckles over again. Still, it was a matter of the very greatest importance, and she must be sure; so she looked into the beautiful woman's face.

      “Are you his wife?” she asked.

      “Yes,” said the woman, “I am his wife.”

      “Well,” said the Angel judicially, “the Bird Woman says no one in the whole world knows all a man's bignesses and all his littlenesses as his wife does. What you think of him should do for me. Do you like him?”

      The question was so earnestly asked that it met with equal earnestness. The dark head moved caressingly against Lord O'More's sleeve.

      “Better than anyone in the whole world,” said Lady O'More promptly.

      The Angel mused a second, and then her legal tinge came to the fore again.

      “Yes, but have you anyone you could like better, if he wasn't all right?” she persisted.

      “I have three of his sons, two little daughters, a father, mother, and several brothers and sisters,” came the quick reply.

      “And you like him best?” persisted the Angel with finality.

      “I love him so much that I would give up every one of them with dry eyes if by so doing I could save him,” cried Lord O'More's wife.

      “Oh!” cried the Angel. “Oh, my!”

      She lifted her clear eyes to Lord O'More's and shook her head.

      “She never, never could do that!” she said. “But it's a mighty big thing to your credit that she THINKS she could. I guess I'll tell you why I came.”

      She laid down the paper, and touched the portrait.

      “When you were only a boy, did people call you Freckles?” she asked.

      “Dozens of good fellows all over Ireland and the Continent are doing it today,” answered Lord O'More.

      The Angel's face wore her most beautiful smile.

      “I was sure of it,” she said winningly. “That's what we call him, and he is so like you, I doubt if any one of those three boys of yours are more so. But it's been twenty years. Seems to me you've been a long time coming!”

      Lord O'More caught the Angel's wrists and his wife slipped her arms around her.

      “Steady, СКАЧАТЬ