Part 21 (2/2)
”She's a good 'draw' for male visitors”--said Gwent--”Many a man I know would pay a hundred dollars a day to have her wait upon him!”
”Would YOU?” asked Seaton, amused.
”Well!--perhaps not a hundred dollars a day, but pretty near it! Her eyes are the finest I've ever seen.”
Seaton made no comment.
”You'll come and dine with me to-night, won't you?” went on Gwent--”You can spare me an hour or two of your company?”
”No, thanks”--Seaton replied--”Don't think me a churlish brute--but I don't like hotels or the people who frequent them. Besides--we've done our business.”
”Unfortunately there was no business doing!” said Gwent--”Sorry I couldn't take it on.”
”Don't be sorry! I'll take it on myself when the moment comes. I would have preferred the fiat of a great government to that of one unauthorised man--but if there's no help for it then the one man must act.”
Gwent looked at him with a grave intentness which he meant to be impressive.
”Seaton, these new scientific discoveries are dangerous tools!” he said--”If they are not handled carefully they may work more mischief than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very planet we live on, some day!”
”Very possible!” answered Seaton, lightly--”But it wouldn't be missed!
Come,--I'll walk with you half way down the hill.”
He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a s.h.i.+eld against the blazing sun, for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent solemnly unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him on occasion as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that afforded by the two men,--the conventionally clothed, stiff-jointed Was.h.i.+ngton senator, and the fine, easy supple figure of his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them descend the hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens, criticised their appearance in her own special way.
”Poof!” she said to herself, snapping her fingers in air--”He is so ugly!--that one man--so dry and yellow and old! But the other--he is a G.o.d!”
And she snapped her fingers again,--then kissed them towards the object of her adoration,--an object as unconscious and indifferent as any senseless idol ever wors.h.i.+pped by blind devotees.
CHAPTER XIII
On his return to the Plaza Mr. Sam Gwent tried to get some conversation with Manella, but found it difficult. She did not wait on the visitors in the dining-room, and Gwent imagined he knew the reason why. Her beauty was of too brilliant and riante a type to escape the notice and admiration of men, whose open attentions were likely to be embarra.s.sing to her, and annoying to her employers. She was therefore kept very much out of the way, serving on the upper floors, and was only seen flitting up and down the staircase or pa.s.sing through the various corridors and balconies. However, when evening fell and its dark, still heat made even the hotel lounge, cooled as it was by a fountain in full play, almost unbearable, Gwent, strolling forth into the garden, found her there standing near a thick hedge of myrtle which exhaled a heavy scent as if every leaf were being crushed between invisible fingers. She looked up as she saw him approaching and smiled.
”You found your friend well?” she said.
”Very well, indeed!” replied Gwent, promptly--”In fact, I never knew he was ill!”
Manella gave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of her many fascinating gestures.
”He is not ill”--she said--”He only pretends! That is all! He has some reason for pretending. I think it is love!”
Gwent laughed.
”Not a bit of it! He's the last man in the world to worry himself about love!”
Manella glanced him over with quite a superior air.
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