Miss Fairfax of Virginia: A Romance of Love and Adventure Under the Palmettos — John Shaqi
Miss Fairfax of Virginia: A Romance of Love and Adventure Under the PalmettosRathborne, St. George
General
Miss Fairfax of Virginia: A Romance of Love and Adventure Under the Palmettos
Rathborne, St. George
Love stories; Virginia -- Fiction
Wellington was simply carrying out the business for which nature had
endowed him.
There were many people gifted with more money than brains--the reverse
was true in his case, and he amused himself by endeavoring to bring
about a more evenly balanced condition of affairs, to his pecuniary
advantage, of course.
Cleo could even find something to admire about his bold piratical way
of living by his wits--at least he had more of the man about him than
most of the petted darlings of society on both sides of the Atlantic
who fawned upon her in a sickly sentimental way from precisely the same
sinister motives that influenced Wellington's bold attacks.
Let these parvenu mammas with daughters to sell pay the penalty for
their sin.
As the day wore on and she saw nothing of Roderic she began to feel a
little worried.
Could harm have befallen him?
She knew the unscrupulous character of those elements which he usually
pitted his powers against.
Perhaps Wellington, that suave deluder, not one whit discouraged by his
first failure, had promptly opened his secondary batteries.
Still, it seemed almost ridiculous to believe harm could have befallen
a sensible man like Roderic in the open streets of Dublin while the sun
was shining.
Had it been Algiers, Constantinople, Pekin or some city of mysterious
India, the case would have appeared far more serious, for uncanny
things are liable to occur in such Oriental marts at any hour of the
day or night.
As evening drew on apace she found herself watching the doorway beyond
which lay the calm square known as St. Stephens' Green.
Her captain had come ashore for a comparison of ideas, and was still
with her, since Cleo desired him to meet her cousin.
They would see much of each other during the voyage, and she
particularly desired to bring about the meeting of two congenial souls.
Dinner passed.
Still no Roderic.
She confided her fears in part to the captain.
The worthy seadog was able to wrestle with any perplexing problem that
might assail them afloat, but when it came to mastering the wiles apt
to beset a man's path ashore he confessed his ignorance.
Nothing could be done--they must wait till a sign of some kind was
given.
That was the exasperating part, for Cleo was naturally a girl of
decided action.
An hour crept by since dinner--two of them, and it was now drawing near
ten o'clock.
No one entered the door but that Cleo's eyes were instantly upon them,
and disappointment had as yet been the only result.
She endeavored to be her own lively self but it required a great effort.
Roderic might be in danger, but somehow she was possessed of the
idea that it was more from a pair of midnight eyes than a murderous
stiletto, for Cleo could not forget the face she had seen, the lovely
original of her photograph, who was even now in Dublin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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