They had gone first to Atlantic City, where Bob had joined their
party, but on the second day after their arrival, one of the private
detectives whom Dick had prudently engaged to keep an eye on John
Dorris, had telegraphed that John had just taken a train for Atlantic
City. How he had discovered their whereabouts they did not know, but
long before his train arrived they were on their way to Cape May.
That was the last they heard of John; whether he had continued the
search, or given up and returned home, they neither knew nor cared.
They travelled on, from one gay summer resort to another, as frantic
in their search for amusement as the prospectors who journey up and
down the Yukon are in their search for gold.
At first Lola had great trouble in teaching Dick that, in spite of her
complete surrender of her life to his care, she had no idea of
allowing him any favors beyond those conventionally granted to an
accepted lover. On rare occasions she let him kiss her, with a little
more warmth than is usually considered quite correct; he was
privileged to hold her hand; once or twice perhaps to take her in his
arms for a moment; aside from that all that he was expected to do was
to provide her with the most costly dresses, and in every way to
gratify her extravagant whims and caprices.
This attitude of Lola's was such a surprise to Mrs. Harlan that the
good lady went about in a sort of fog of astonished admiration, and
confided to Bob, at intervals of about four hours, that Lola was
"about the slickest article she had as yet discovered."
Dick himself, however, seemed perfectly satisfied after he had been
made to clearly understand Lola's attitude. She had read his nature
with true feminine intuition; to him the thing out of his reach was
always the thing to be desired, and he made the life of his Cleveland
attorney a burden with his daily demands of a speedy settlement of his
divorce.
To Lola's father, sitting alone in New York, quietly waiting her
return, to John or to Dr. Crossett, now half way across the Atlantic
on his way back to Paris, the knowledge of her attitude might have
brought some comfort; to them she seemed lost to all feelings of shame
or sense of prudence, and it is possible, had they known how matters
stood, that they would have kept on in their search for her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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