Parker remarked, lighting another cigar. "My daughter
knows that I speak nothing else. It is a weakness of mine. Mr. Walmsley
and I were exchanging notes as to our relative professions. I told him
frankly that I was an adventurer and you an adventuress. I think by now he
is beginning to believe it."
She laughed very softly--almost under her breath; yet I fancied there was
a note of mockery in her mirth.
"Confess that you were very much shocked, Mr. Walmsley!" she said.
"Not in the least," I assured her.
She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly.
"Confess, then," she went on, "confess, Mr. Walmsley, that in all your
well-ordered life you have never heard such an admission made by two
apparently respectable people before."
"How do you know," I asked, "that my life has been well-ordered?"
"Look at yourself in the glass," she begged.
Scarcely knowing what I did, I turned round in my seat and obeyed her.
There is, perhaps, a certain preciseness about my appearance as well as my
attire. I am tall enough--well over six feet--but my complexion still
retains traces of my years in Africa and of my fondness for outdoor
sports. My hair is straight and I have never grown beard or mustache. I
felt, somehow, that I represented the things which in an Englishman are a
little derided by young ladies on the other side of the water.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30