FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63  
64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   >>   >|  
dies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond; and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast carved and gilded doorway. "I have been looking everywhere for you," she said, plaintive. "Poor sweetheart," he commiserated her. "And can't you find me?" "I couldn't," said Annunziata, bearing on the tense. "But I have found you _now_." "Oh? Have you? Where?" asked he. "_Where?_" cried she, with a disdainful movement. "But _here_, of course." "I wouldn't be too cocksure of that," he cautioned her. "_Here_ is a mighty evasive bird. For, suppose we were elsewhere, then _there_ would be here, and here would be somewhere else." "No," said Annunziata, with resolution. "Where a person is, that is always _here_." "You speak as if a person carried his here with him, like his hat," said John. "Yes, that is how it is," said Annunziata, nodding. "You have a remarkably solid little head,--for all its curls, there's no confusing it," said he. "Well, have you your report, drawn up, signed, sealed, sworn to before a Commissioner for Oaths, and ready to be delivered?" "My report--?" questioned Annunziata, with a glance. "About the Form," said John. "I caught you yesterday red-handed in the fact of pumping it." "Yes," said Annunziata. "Her name is Maria Dolores." "A most becoming name," said he. "She is very nice," said Annunziata. "She looks very nice," said he. "She is twenty-two years and ten months old," continued his informant. "Fancy. As middle-aged as that," commented he. "Yes. She is an Austrian." "Ah." "And as I told you, she is visiting the Signora Brandi. Only, she calls her Frao Branta." "Frao Branta?" John turned the name on his tongue. "Branta? Branta?" What familiar German name, at the back of his memory, did it half evoke? Suddenly he had a flash. "Can you possibly mean Frau Brandt?" Annunziata gave a gesture of affirmation. "Yes, that is it," she said. "You sound it just as she did!" "I see," said John. "And Brandt, if there are degrees of unbirth, is even more furiously unborn than Brandi." "Unborn--?" said Annunziata, frowning. "Not noble--not of the aristocracy," John explained. "Very few people are noble," said Annunziata. "All the more reason, then, why you and I should be thankful that we are," sai
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63  
64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Annunziata
 

Branta

 

person

 

Brandt

 
Brandi
 
report
 

continued

 
commented
 

months

 

middle


informant

 

Austrian

 
caught
 

yesterday

 
handed
 
questioned
 

glance

 

pumping

 
visiting
 

twenty


Dolores

 

familiar

 

Unborn

 
frowning
 

unborn

 
furiously
 

degrees

 

unbirth

 

aristocracy

 

thankful


reason

 

explained

 
people
 

delivered

 

German

 

tongue

 
turned
 
memory
 

gesture

 

affirmation


possibly

 

Suddenly

 

Signora

 

couldn

 
bearing
 

sweetheart

 
approaching
 

commiserated

 
disdainful
 

movement