“Oh, I see. And did you extend that sympathy which--”
There was a knock at the door, and the maid came in, bearing a card.
“Good gracious me!” cried Katherine, jumping to her feet. “The Prince
has come. What a stupid thing that we have no mirror in this room, and
it’s a sewing and sitting room, too. Do I look all right, Dorothy?”
“To me you seem perfection.”
“Ah, well, I can glance at a glass on the next floor. Won’t you come
down and see him trampled on?”
“No, thank you. I shall most likely drop off to sleep, and enjoy forty
winks in this very comfortable chair. Don’t be too harsh with the
young man, Kate. You are quite wrong in your surmises about him. The
Lieutenant never made any such arrangement as you suggest, because he
talked of nothing but the most commonplace subjects all the time I was
with him, as I was just about to tell you, only you seem in such a hurry
to get away.”
“Oh, that doesn’t deceive me in the least. I’ll be back shortly, with
the young man’s scalp dangling at my belt. Now we shan’t be long,” and
with that Katherine went skipping downstairs.
Dorothy picked up a magazine that lay on the table, and for a few
moments turned its leaves from one story to another, trying to interest
herself, but failing. Then she lifted the newspaper that lay at her
feet, but it also was soon cast aside, and she leaned back in her chair
with half-closed eyes, looking out at the cruiser in the Bay. A slight
haze arose between her and the ship, thickening and thickening until at
last it obscured the vessel.
Dorothy was oppressed by a sense of something forgotten, and she strove
in vain to remember what it was. It was of the utmost importance, she
was certain, and this knowledge made her mental anxiety the greater.
At last out of the gloom she saw Sabina approach, clothed in rags, and
then a flash of intuition enabled her to grasp the difficulty. Through
her remissness the ball dress was unfinished, and the girl, springing
to her feet, turned intuitively to the sewing-machine, when the ringing
laugh of Katherine dissolved the fog.
“Why, you poor girl, what’s the matter with you? Are you sitting down to
drudgery again? You’ve forgotten the fortune!”
“Are--are you back already?” cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.
“Already! Why, bless me, I’ve been away an hour and a quarter. You dear
girl, you’ve been asleep and in slavery again!”
“I think I was,” admitted Dorothy with a sigh.
CHAPTER VI --FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN
THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy sailed
down the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor, but sent
a wireless telegram to the “Consternation,” which pulled up anchor and
joined the fleet outside, and so the war-ships departed for another
port.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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