FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   142   >>  
at a green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut country house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow does not make a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis convince a skeptical public that it is enjoying the fearful companionship of a subversive and revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed out as fast as it had flooded in. Barbran's eyes were as soft and happy as ever in the evenings, when she and Phil sat in a less and less interrupted solitude. But in the mornings palpable fear stalked her. Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied with a dread of his own. One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up to facing the facts. "It's going to be a failure," she said dismally. "Then you're going away?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from quaking. She set her little chin quite firmly. "Not while there's a chance left of pulling it out." "Well; it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned," he muttered. "I'm going away myself." "You?" She sat up very straight and startled. "Where?" "Kansas City." "Oh! What for?" "Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came back to ask about the decorations?" "Yes." "He's built him a new house--he calls it a mansion--and he wants me to paint the music-room. He likes"--Phil gulped a little--"my style of art." "Isn't that great!" said Barbran in the voice of one giving three cheers for a funeral. "How does he want his music-room decorated?" Young Phil put his head in his hands. "Scenes from Moody and Sankey," he said in a muffled voice. "Good gracious! You aren't going to do it?" "I am," retorted the other gloomily. "It's good money." Almost immediately he added, "Damn the money!" "No; no; you mustn't do that. You must go, of course. Would--will it take long?" "I'm not coming back." "I don't _want_ you not to come back," said Barbran, in a queer, frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and hastily withdrew it. He said desperately: "What's the use? I can't sit here forever looking at you and--and dreaming of--of impossible things, and eating my heart out with my nose painted green." "The poor nose!" murmured Barbran. With one of her home-
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   142   >>  



Top keywords:
Barbran
 

straight

 

gulped

 

remember

 

grandpa

 
decorations
 
mansion
 

Kansas

 
startled
 

Sankey


frightened

 

hastily

 
desperately
 

withdrew

 
coming
 

painted

 
murmured
 
eating
 

things

 

forever


dreaming

 

impossible

 

Scenes

 

muffled

 

cheers

 

funeral

 

decorated

 

gracious

 

immediately

 

Almost


retorted

 
gloomily
 

giving

 

skeptical

 

convince

 
public
 

enjoying

 
proboscis
 

vernal

 
swallow

summer
 

fearful

 
companionship
 
flooded
 

subversive

 

revolutionary

 
Patronage
 

faithful

 
Coventry
 

discovered