FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   >>  
meeting the unresponding maturity of her clear eyes he abandoned it. "You know, Clementina, I have never interfered in your affairs, nor tried to influence your friendships for anybody. Whatever people may have to say of me they can't say that! I've always trusted you, as I would myself, to choose your own associates; I have never regretted it, and I don't regret it now. But I'd like to know--I have reasons to-day for asking--how matters stand between you and Grant." The Parian head of Minerva on the bookcase above her did not offer the spectator a face less free from maidenly confusion than Clementina's at that moment. Her father had certainly expected none, but he was not prepared for the perfect coolness of her reply. "Do you mean, have I ACCEPTED him?" "No,--well--yes." "No, then! Is that what he wished to see you about? It was understood that he was not to allude again to the subject to any one." "He has not to ME. It was only my own idea. He had something very different to tell me. You may not know, Clementina," he begun cautiously, "that I have been lately the subject of some anonymous slanders, and Grant has taken the trouble to track them down for me. It is a calumny that goes back as far as Sidon, and I may want your level head and good memory to help me to refute it." He then repeated calmly and clearly, with no trace of the fury that had raged within him a moment before, the substance of Grant's revelation. The young girl listened without apparent emotion. When he had finished she said quickly: "And what do you want me to recollect?" The hardest part of Harcourt's task was coming. "Well, don't you remember that I told you the day the surveyors went away--that--I had bought this land of 'Lige Curtis some time before?" "Yes, I remember your saying so, but"-- "But what?" "I thought you only meant that to satisfy mother." Daniel Harcourt felt the blood settling round his heart, but he was constrained by an irresistible impulse to know the worst. "Well, what did YOU think it really was?" "I only thought that 'Lige Curtis had simply let you have it, that's all." Harcourt breathed again. "But what for? Why should he?" "Well--ON MY ACCOUNT." "On YOUR account! What in Heaven's name had YOU to do with it?" "He loved me." There was not the slightest trace of vanity, self-consciousness or coquetry in her quiet, fateful face, and for this very reason Harcourt knew that she was speaki
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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:
Harcourt
 

Clementina

 

subject

 

Curtis

 

moment

 
remember
 
thought
 

refute

 
repeated
 

calmly


coming

 

surveyors

 
emotion
 

apparent

 
quickly
 

finished

 
listened
 
revelation
 

recollect

 

hardest


substance

 

settling

 

account

 

Heaven

 

ACCOUNT

 

breathed

 

fateful

 

reason

 

speaki

 

coquetry


slightest

 
vanity
 

consciousness

 

mother

 

satisfy

 
Daniel
 

memory

 
impulse
 

simply

 
irresistible

constrained
 

bought

 
matters
 
reasons
 

regretted

 

regret

 
Parian
 

Minerva

 
maidenly
 

confusion