Love stories; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Switzerland -- Fiction
Poor Sims, he was sorry for him, but it might have been worse. _He_
might have been in the cab himself and now be offering explanations of
his own as to a wild desire to kill that knight in armour, and Isobel
as well. Oh! what a fool he had been. What business was it of his if
Isobel chose to give roses to some friend of hers at a dance? She was
not his property, but only a girl with whom he chanced to have been
brought up, and who found him a pleasant companion when there was no
one else at hand.
By nature, as has been recorded, Godfrey was intensely proud, and then
and there he made a resolution that he would have nothing more to do
with Isobel. Never again would he hang about the skirts of that fine
and rich young lady, who on the night that he was going away could give
roses to another man, just because he was a lord and
good-looking—yes, and kiss them too. His father was quite right about
women, and he would take his advice to the letter, and begin to study
Proverbs forthwith, especially the marked passages.
Having come to this conclusion, and thus eased his troubled mind, he
went to sleep in good earnest, for he was very tired. The next thing of
which he became aware was that someone was hammering at the door, and
calling out that a lady downstairs said he must get up at once if he
meant to be in time. He looked at his watch, a seven-and-sixpenny
article that he had been given off a Christmas tree at Hawk’s Hall,
and observed, with horror, that he had just ten minutes in which to
dress, pack, and catch the train. Somehow he did it, for fortunately
his bill had been paid. Always in after days a tumultuous vision
remained in his mind of himself, a long, lank youth with unbrushed hair
and unbuttoned waistcoat, carrying a bag and a coat, followed by an
hotel porter with his luggage, rushing wildly down an interminable
platform with his ticket in his teeth towards an already moving train.
At an open carriage door stood a lady in whom he recognized Miss
Ogilvy, who was imploring the guard to hold the train.
“Can’t do it, ma’am, any longer,” said the guard,
between blasts of his whistle and wavings of his green flag. “It’s
all my place is worth to delay the Continental Express for more than a
minute. Thank you kindly, ma’am. Here he comes,” and the flag
paused for a few seconds. “In you go, young gentleman.”
A heave, a struggle, an avalanche of baggage, and Godfrey found himself
in the arms of Miss Ogilvy in a reserved first-class carriage. From
those kind supporting arms he slid gently and slowly to the floor.
“Well,” said that lady, contemplating him with his back resting
against a portmanteau, “you cut things rather fine.”
Still seated on the floor, Godfrey pulled out his watch and looked at
it, then remarked that eleven minutes before he was fast asleep in bed.
“I thought as much,” she said severely, “and that’s why
I told the maid to see if you had been called, which I daresay you
forgot to arrange for yourself.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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