Читать книгу The Carcellini Emerald, With Other Tales онлайн

17 страница из 51

“I believe you are in love with that—— monolith!” said her brother, with an oath.

Miss Carmichael looked at him with undisturbed equanimity.

“What Mr. Oliver did for me in my hour of greatest need would entitle him to the best my heart could give. But you forget, I think, that this and other experiences have made of me a machine, not a woman. No need, however, to tell you what he did for me, or what I am. Will you stay away from the Ellisons’ dinner, or will you not?”

“I shall go,” said Carmichael, stubbornly. “I am to take in Miss Ellison, and to lead their cotillon afterward. I could not be guilty of such a departure from good form as to throw over the Ellisons because this assorted lot of paragons of yours are going to be there. Among thirty people it is hardly likely I shall run counter to them. And should I do so, I fancy my position is assured beyond any attempt at a slight they could put upon me. My dear girl, your attitude in all this is in the last degree strained and goody-goody. Leave me to paddle my own canoe, as I have left you. We shall continue to do without each other, I do not doubt. No man alive could endure to have a Lady Macbeth kind of female arise and stalk about him indulging in remorseful soliloquies about his past. I am sorry that the only visit you have done me the honor to make me should have been devoted to such a ridiculous and futile enterprise. And you will permit me to suggest once more that I am really very much afraid you are indulging in a schoolgirl passion for your hero, the doughty and horny-handed Tom.”