Part 10 (1/2)
That you don't want toOh, please entleiddy
He felt as though he had just been whisked up froled Dan, who represented the rescuer, was not prepossessing He was the coirl herself was an ientle fellow threw his boyish head back--”or that I care to hear hiave a cry, sharp and wounded The sound touched the now norrateful patron, who had come out of his ordeal with as much kindly sensibility as he went in
”Of course,lady”--he perfectly understood the situation--”I will tell your friend the facts of our acquaintance
That's what you wanton to the unyielding ar Bulstrode with a youthful jealousy at which the older man smiled while he envied it He pursued i ave her the order at the Art League; other than painter and sitter we have no possible interest in each other--Mr----”
”Gregs,” snapped the stranger, ”Daniel Gregs!”
The slender creature, whose eyes never left the stolid, uncoerly:
”_No possible interest_--Dan--none! He doesn't care anything about me at all! You heard what he said, didn't you? I only like him like a kind, kind friend”
[Illustration: ”I only like him like a kind, kind friend”]
Her voice, soft as a flower, caressed and pleaded with the passionate tenderness of a woman who feels that an inadvertent word may keep for her or lose for her the reat irritation, ”you ought to be ashamed to let her cry like that! Can't you _understand_--don't you see?”
”No,” shortly caught up the other, ”I don't! I've co some mines for a company at Centreville, and I heard she was poor and unhappy, and I hurried up s so I could come to Paris andevery day alone with a rich man, her place all fixed up with flowers, and a thousand dollars in the bank”--his cheek reddened--”I don't like it! And that's all there is to it!” he finished shortly
”No, reat deal more
If, from what you say, and the way you speak, you wish me to understand you have a real interest in Miss Desprey, you can follohen I say that I caed to return to Idaho when she didn't want to go, without any money or any friends May I ask you why, if there was any one in the world who cared for her, she should be left so deserted?”
The girl here turned her face from her lover to her champion
”Don't please bla when he went to South Africa; it was just a chance if he would succeed And he orking for s interrupted:
”I don't owe this gentleently, ”perhaps not, but you mustn't, on the other hand, refuse to hear mine Be reasonable Why _shouldn't_ Miss Desprey have an order for a portrait?”
Gregs, over the golden head against his arm, looked at Bulstrode:
”_She_ can't paint!” His tone was gentler ”Laura can't paint, and you know it!”