The Wild Olive eBook

Basil King
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 377 pages of information about The Wild Olive.

The Wild Olive eBook

Basil King
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 377 pages of information about The Wild Olive.

“Well,” he said suddenly, “has he come back?”

He had not approached the subject, beyond alluding to it covertly, since the day she had confided to him the confused story of her hopes.  She blotted her signature carefully thinking out her reply.

“I’ve given up expecting him,” she said at last.

“Ho! ho!  So that’s out of the way.”

She pretended to be scanning the documents before her so as to be able to sit with her back to him.

“It isn’t, for the reason that there’s—­no way,” she said, after some hesitation.

“Oh yes, there is,” he laughed, “where there’s a will.”

“But I’ve no will.”

“I have; I’ve enough for two.”

“I’ll tell you what you have got,” she said, half turning and speaking to him over the back of her chair.  He drew near her.  “You’ve got a great deal of common sense, and I want to ask your advice.”

“I can give that, as radium emits light—­without ever diminishing the original store.”

“Then tell me.  Has one ever the right to interfere where a man and a woman—­”

“No, never.  You needn’t give me any more details, because it’s one of the questions an oracle finds easiest to answer.  No one ever thanks you—­”

“I shouldn’t be doing it for thanks.”

“And you get your own fingers burnt.”

“That wouldn’t matter.  I’d let my fingers burn to the bone if it would do any good.”

“It wouldn’t.  You may take my word for it.  I know who you’re talking about.  It’s Evie Colfax.”

She started, looking guilty.  “Why should you suppose that?”

“I’ve got eyes.  I’ve watched her, and I know she’s a little minx.  Oh, you needn’t protest.  She’s a taking little minx, and this time she’s in the right.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“What has Billy Merrow got to offer her, even if he is my nephew?  Come now!  He won’t be in a position to marry for the next two or three years.  Whereas that fellow Strange—­”

“Have you heard anything about him?” she asked, breathlessly.

“It isn’t what I’ve heard, it’s what I see.  He’s a very good chap, and a first-rate man of business.”

“Do you know him well—­personally?”

“I meet him around—­at the club and other places—­and naturally I have something to do with him at the office.  I like him.  If Evie can snap him up she’ll be doing well for herself.  I’m sorry for Billy, of course; but he’ll have time to break his heart more than once before he’ll have money enough to do anything else with it.  If I’d married at his age—­”

This, however, was venturing on delicate ground, so that he broke off, wheeling round toward the centre of the drawing-room.  She folded the documents and brought them to him.

“You know why I didn’t send them?” he said, as he took them.  “I thought if I came myself, you might have something to tell me.”

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Wild Olive from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.