Margarita's Soul: The Romantic Recollections of a Man of FiftyBacon, Josephine Daskam
General
Margarita's Soul: The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty
Bacon, Josephine Daskam
Fiction
Clear as I am on a thousand little points that concern my first
meeting with Margarita, my mind is a perfect blank when I try to
recall the events of the next half hour. We must, of course, have left
the rock, for I have a dim recollection of drinking healths in that
dear old room and signing our names to something. But on what order we
left it, of what we spoke, if we spoke at all, and how we at last
found ourselves alone, I do not know. And yet it seems to me that some
one--was it I?--discussed remedies for insomnia with some one else,
and that some third person assured us that nothing but a complete
change of scene could be of any lasting benefit. And my reason assures
me that Tip and I and the telegraph operator must have been these
three, for I seem to see, as if through a dim haze, a beautiful woman
in a blue dress sitting under a fruit tree, with a dog's head in her
lap, a flaming handful of nasturtiums in her belt, and a man lying at
her feet, with his hand in hers and his eyes fixed on her face. This
could hardly have been Roger, one would think, for Roger was not a
demonstrative man, and certainly not likely to have been so under
these circumstances ... and yet, if not Roger, who could it have been?
After that I remember well enough. Caliban was to row the telegrapher
back, as he had brought him over, and as the haggard little fellow
advanced to say his good-byes, Margarita and Roger appeared from
somewhere to receive them. He shook her hand cordially and tried
honestly not to stare too admiringly at her.
"This has been a great pleasure, Mrs. Bradley, a real pleasure to me,"
he said, "aside from the romance and--and so forth, you understand. It
isn't often I can get off like this in the daytime, and I shouldn't
wonder if the air and the water and all made me sleep a little
to-night! I little thought when Mr. Bradley asked for an hour of my
time to-day that I should be going to the wedding of the Miss Prynne I
had heard so much about."
Tip and I glanced irrepressibly at each other, wondering if this
suggestion would commend itself to Roger. But he, I think, had paid no
attention to the words, and his smile was merely kindly and polite. So
the sleepless one rowed away, the richer by a box of good cigars, and
Tip and I were left to plan our own departure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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