FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116  
117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   >>   >|  
y: "To-morrow, then, at twelve." Then she looked at me with the odd veiled glance I had seen before--a glance which expressed both dislike and fear, and held at the same time a keener and more piercing observation than anybody at first sight would have been likely to charge the butterfly-like woman with. I have spoken quite openly, and as if what I have had to say had been the most commonplace matter in the world. Violet had heard me, but when we went back to the drawing-room together she asked no questions. She has told me since that she wondered a little what appointment I could have with the Baroness Bonnar, but she gave me here the first of a hundred thousand proofs of that noble freedom from the pinch of small curiosity which helps to make her different from and superior to her sex. I kept my appointment next day, and found the baroness at home. She had a dainty little house of her own, and I suppose that at this time she kept better style, was furnished with completer credentials, was admitted to know better people, and was more liberally supplied with funds than at any other period of her curiously vagabond existence. She was to me at this time the Baroness Bonnar pure and simple, a foreign lady of wealth and position who moved in good society, had agreeable and influential friends, and obvious command of money. She was to me, in short, what she was to the rest of the world, and I had no earthly reason to doubt any of her pretences. But I had come with a definite object, and I approached it at once. She was not at all disposed to banter to-day, but met me with perfect candor. "My time is a little limited, Captain Fyffe," she began. "Will you do me the honor to let me know at once to what I owe your visit?" "I passed you last night in Bond Street," I returned. She nodded briefly, with her lips tight set and her eyes glittering a little dangerously, I thought. "Would you oblige me by telling me the name of your companion?" "Would you oblige me," she retorted, "by telling me the reasons for which you ask it?" She was so very quick and resolute that I saw at once she had been prepared for the occasion. "I had rather not give my reason just at present, baroness," I said. "I have, as a matter of fact, no reason for asking the lady's name for my own satisfaction, because I know it with much more certainty than you do." "Oh!" she said, very quietly. "Then why do you ask?" "Let me change my quest
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116  
117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

reason

 

Bonnar

 

matter

 
oblige
 
telling
 

baroness

 
appointment
 

Baroness

 

glance

 

obvious


command
 

limited

 

friends

 

agreeable

 

society

 
influential
 

Captain

 

disposed

 

banter

 
definite

pretences

 
candor
 

earthly

 

approached

 

perfect

 

object

 

briefly

 
present
 

resolute

 

prepared


occasion

 

satisfaction

 

change

 

quietly

 

certainty

 

Street

 

returned

 

nodded

 

passed

 

thought


companion

 

retorted

 

reasons

 

dangerously

 

glittering

 

openly

 
spoken
 

charge

 

butterfly

 

commonplace