Fantasy fiction; Science fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
Here I was, at her own invitation, to rescue my love. As my mind began
to work I saw that I must be guided in my course of action by what she
told me. Juanita obviously thought that her father's aberration was a
form of madness without foundation. She did not know what I had
discovered. If she did she might realize that her father was possibly
not so mad as she imagined. For myself, after this space of time, I can
say that I was very seriously disturbed by Arthur Winstanley's
revelations in regard to the unspeakable Midwinter and the news that he
was now in England. Perhaps you will remember that in Bill Rolston's
telegram to me he hinted at some suspicious strangers having been seen
in the private bar of the "Golden Swan." One of them, I had ascertained,
answered to the description of Midwinter in every detail, and the two
men were seen by Sliddim to drive away through Richmond Park in a large,
private car.
Certainly I must tell Juanita something of this and help her to warn her
father, perhaps....
And then I remembered the elaborate precautions of my ascent, the
literal impossibility of any stranger or strangers ever getting to where
I was, and I breathed again.
The place--one couldn't call it a room--in which I sat, was simply a
little sexagonal nook or retreat, masked from the great library by its
great door of books. Three of the panels which went from the floor to
the vaulted ceiling were of dead black silk. The other three were of
Chinese embroidery, stiff, with raised gold, and gems, which I realized
must be from the choicest examples of their kind in the world. Still, I
wasn't interested in dragons of tarnished gold, with opal eyes, ivory
teeth, and scales of lapislazuli. I was getting restive when the black
panel, which was the back of the entrance door, swung towards me, and I
saw Juanita.
She was dressed in black, a sort of tea-gown I suppose you'd call it,
though round her shoulders and falling on each side of her slim form was
a cloak of heavy sable.
In her blue-black hair--oh, my dear, how true you were then to the
fashions of the south, and how true you are to-day--there was a glowing,
crimson rose.
We stood and looked at each other, in this tiny room, for I suppose two
or three seconds.
What Juanita felt she told me afterwards, and it isn't part of this
narrative.
What I felt was awe, sheer, impersonal awe, as I realized that I had
surmounted incredible difficulties, endured ages of longing, plotting,
planning, and now stood alone in front of the most Beautiful Girl in the
World.
I saw her as that. I remembered the night at Lady Brentford's when the
league was formed.
And then, thank Heaven, for in another second everything might have been
quite spoiled, I remembered that she was just my Juanita, who had sent
for me, and I took her in my arms and, and....
* * * * *
We sat hand in hand upon the odd little Chinese couch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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