The Golden WebOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Golden Web
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories
He crossed the room and fetched his hat and gloves from a cupboard. He
glanced into a looking-glass for a moment to straighten his tie, and met
the girl's eyes fixed upon him. He stood quite still, watching. She was
looking at him, at his back, as he stood there. There was expression in
her face at last, an expression which puzzled him, which he failed
altogether to understand. He stood quite still, with his fingers still
upon the sailor knot of his tie. As though she realized the
possibilities of the mirror, she suddenly turned around. When he came
towards her, the mask, if it was a mask, was there once more.
"If you will come with me," said he, "I should be glad to go and see
your brother."
They passed through the offices side by side. Many curious eyes followed
them. Deane paused at one or two of the desks to leave a few parting
instructions. Then he handed the girl into the electric brougham which
was waiting at the door.
"The Grand Hotel," he told the man.
He got in and seated himself by her side. "Miss Rowan," he said, "you
are beginning to interest me exceedingly."
"I am sure that you cannot be in earnest," she answered, without turning
her head. "I am a most uninteresting person, living a most uninteresting
life."
"I think you said that you were a typist," he remarked.
"I am," she answered. "I am employed by Messrs. Rubicon & Moore in St.
Mary's Passage. I have been there for three years."
"With occasional holidays," he remarked, with a smile.
She shook her head. "The only holiday I have taken," she answered, "was
when I came to see you."
He deliberately leaned forward to look into her face. The memory of that
moment when he had held her in his arms, the breaking of the storm, the
thrill, the wonderful, unanalyzed excitement which seemed to play about
them like the lightning which was soon to flash across the sea and land,
came back to him. He looked deliberately into her face,--still as the
grave,--at the large eyes, which were listlessly fixed upon the
streaming people.
"You are the most amazing person!" he said softly. "Perhaps, as you were
never at the Hotel Universal, you were never in Rakney? Perhaps it was
not you who came to me with the storm, who tapped at my window, who
stood there like the daughter of the storm itself, who--"
"It was I who came to Rakney," she said. "You know that very well, Mr.
Deane. Neither have I forgotten it. But I think that you should not
remind me just now of that."
Of course she was right, but Deane felt a little unhinged. Her
invulnerability was maddening. "Perhaps not," he answered. "Perhaps I
have no right to remind you of that night, of the time when you crept in
from the storm, crept into my arms."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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