The Adventures of SallyWodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
General
The Adventures of Sally
Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Humorous stories; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
The first of the pair did not attract her. He was a tall, dark man whose
tight, precise mouth and rather high cheeks bones gave him an appearance
vaguely sinister. He had the dusky look of the clean-shaven man whose
life is a perpetual struggle with a determined beard. He certainly
shaved twice a day, and just as certainly had the self-control not to
swear when he cut himself. She could picture him smiling nastily when
this happened.
“Hard,” diagnosed Sally. “I shouldn't like him. A lawyer or something, I
think.”
She turned to the other and found herself looking into his eyes. This
was because he had been staring at Sally with the utmost intentness ever
since his arrival. His mouth had opened slightly. He had the air of a
man who, after many disappointments, has at last found something worth
looking at.
“Rather a dear,” decided Sally.
He was a sturdy, thick-set young man with an amiable, freckled face and
the reddest hair Sally had ever seen. He had a square chin, and at one
angle of the chin a slight cut. And Sally was convinced that, however
he had behaved on receipt of that wound, it had not been with superior
self-control.
“A temper, I should think,” she meditated. “Very quick, but soon over.
Not very clever, I should say, but nice.”
She looked away, finding his fascinated gaze a little embarrassing.
The dark man, who in the objectionably competent fashion which, one
felt, characterized all his actions, had just succeeded in lighting
a cigarette in the teeth of a strong breeze, threw away the match and
resumed the conversation, which had presumably been interrupted by the
process of sitting down.
“And how is Scrymgeour?” he inquired.
“Oh, all right,” replied the young man with red hair absently. Sally was
looking straight in front of her, but she felt that his eyes were still
busy.
“I was surprised at his being here. He told me he meant to stay in
Paris.”
There was a slight pause. Sally gave the attentive poodle a piece of
nougat.
“I say,” observed the red-haired young man in clear, penetrating tones
that vibrated with intense feeling, “that's the prettiest girl I've seen
in my life!”
2
At this frank revelation of the red-haired young man's personal
opinions, Sally, though considerably startled, was not displeased. A
broad-minded girl, the outburst seemed to her a legitimate comment on a
matter of public interest. The young man's companion, on the other hand,
was unmixedly shocked.
“My dear fellow!” he ejaculated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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