Actresses -- Fiction; Families -- Fiction; Foster children -- Fiction; Girls -- Fiction; Social classes -- Fiction
“Spendthrift of time and chance--that’s what you are,” decided Baron,
disabled, directing his condemnation against Baron, well and sound.
“You’ve been thinking all the time that to be Baron was something fine.
You haven’t had sense enough to realize that merely being Baron wasn’t
being anything at all. You’ve got to realize that all men must be
measured by just one standard. You’ve got to quit thinking it’s right
for you to do just the pleasant things--the things you like to do. You
have got to go to work, and take orders like any other man.”
Lying in his room, he obtained a new impression of Bonnie May, too.
She did not return to the mansion on the day of his accident. He
thought she might possibly do so after the theatre hour, but the
evening passed and in due time there were the sounds of the house being
closed for the night, and languid voices calling to one another on the
floor below.
The first long night passed, with occasional tapping on the invalid’s
door by Mrs. Baron. A dozen times during the night she came to see if
he needed anything, to be sure that he rested comfortably.
Finally he chided her gayly for disturbing him and herself; then, after
another interval which seemed only of a few minutes, he opened his eyes
again to respond to the tapping on the door, and discovered that the
sun was shining into the room. It was quite late in the forenoon.
“I’ve come with the papers,” said Flora, approaching his bed like a
particularly lovely ministering angel. “Mother’s lying down. She didn’t
sleep very well last night.”
Baron had the odd thought that people must look entirely different if
you looked at them while you were lying down. Never before had Flora
seemed so serene and beautiful and richly endowed with graces of person
and voice. He was so pleased with this view of her that he decided not
to lift his head.
Then, while she arranged the papers, unconscious of his scrutiny, he
read an expression in her eyes which brought him abruptly to his elbow.
“Flora,” he declared, “you’re not happy!”
She laughed softly as if to ridicule such a suggestion, but immediately
there was a delicate flush in her face. “Nonsense!” she said. “And
somebody helpless in the house to worry about? One wouldn’t dance and
sing under the circumstances. I’m trying to behave becomingly--that’s
all.”
Baron disregarded this. “And as soon as I get up,” he said, “I’m
going to see that certain nonsense is ended. He’s a dandy good
fellow--that’s what he is. I can’t imagine what we’ve all been
thinking about.”
“He--” Flora began properly enough, but the conventional falsehood
she meant to utter failed to shape itself. She couldn’t return her
brother’s glance. It occurred to her that the window-shade needed
adjusting.
“I’m going to put a stop to certain nonsense,” Baron repeated. He
rattled the newspapers with decision, covertly regarding his sister,
who did not trust herself to speak again. She kept her eyes averted as
she left the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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