FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   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   >>   >|  
oing to do it.--Come along to the Milan, later on, and lunch. Lady Amesbury and Sarah Baldwin and a few others are coming." "Lady Dredlinton, by any chance?" Kendrick asked. "Lady Dredlinton, certainly." "I'll turn up soon after one. And, Wingate." "Well?" "Don't think I'm a croaker, but I know Peter Phipps. There isn't a man on this earth I'd fear more as an enemy. He's unscrupulous, untrustworthy, and an unflinching hater. You and he are hard up against one another, I know, and I suppose you realise that your growing friendship with Josephine Dredlinton is simply hell for him." "I imagine you know that his attentions to her have been entirely unwelcome," Wingate said calmly. "I will answer for it that she has never encouraged him for a moment," Kendrick assented, "yet Phipps is one of those men who never take 'no' for an answer, who simply don't know what it is to despair of a thing. I've been watching that menage for the last twelve months, and I've watched Peter Phipps fighting his grim battle. I think I was one of the party when he first met her. Since then, though the fellow has any amount of tact, his pursuit of her must have been a persecution. He put Dredlinton on the Board of the B. & I., solely to buy his way into the household. He sent him home one day in a new car--a present to his wife. She has never ridden in it and she made her husband return it." "I know," Wingate muttered. "I've heard a little of this, and seen it, too." "Well, there you are," Kendrick concluded. "You know Phipps. You know what it must seem like to him to have another man step in, just as he may have been flattering himself that he was gaining ground. He hated you before. He'd give his soul, if he had one to break you now." "He'll do what he can, Ken," said Wingate, with a smile, as he left the office, "but you may take it that the odds are a trifle on us.--Not later than one-thirty, then." "There is no doubt," he remarked a moment later, as he stepped into his car, where Josephine was waiting for him, "that we are at war." She laughed quietly. The excitement of those last few minutes in the offices of the British and Imperial Granaries had acted like a stimulant. She had lost entirely her tense and depressed air. The colour of her eyes was newly discovered in the light that played there. "You couldn't have fired the first shot in more dramatic fashion," she declared. "Even Mr. Phipps lost his nerve for a m
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Phipps
 

Wingate

 

Dredlinton

 

Kendrick

 

simply

 
answer
 
moment
 

Josephine

 
muttered
 

return


ridden

 

flattering

 
husband
 

gaining

 
ground
 

concluded

 
waiting
 
colour
 

discovered

 

depressed


Granaries

 

stimulant

 

played

 

declared

 

fashion

 

dramatic

 

couldn

 

Imperial

 

British

 

thirty


remarked

 
office
 

trifle

 

stepped

 

quietly

 
excitement
 

minutes

 
offices
 

laughed

 
watching

unscrupulous
 

untrustworthy

 
unflinching
 
friendship
 

imagine

 

growing

 
suppose
 

realise

 
croaker
 

Amesbury