Читать книгу The Ball of Fire онлайн

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“The Palisade Special will not start without Miss Sargent,” he declared, bending upon her an ardent gaze, and bestowing upon her a smile which displayed a flash of perfect white teeth.

Gail breathlessly thought him the most dangerously handsome thing she had ever seen, but she missed the foreign accent in him. That would have made him complete.

“I’m sorry that the Palisade Special will be delayed,” she coolly told him, but she tempered the deliberateness of that decision with an upward and sidelong glance, which she was startled to recognise in herself as distinct coquetry. She concluded, however, on reflection, that this was only a just meed which no one could withhold from this resplendent creature.

“You haven’t the heart to refuse,” protested handsome Dick, coming nearer, and again smiling down at her.

“I have a prior claim,” laughed Allison, stepping up and taking her by the arm. “It’s my turn to guide Miss Sargent on the two-passenger sled.”

There was something new about Allison to-night. There was the thrill and the exultation of youth in his voice, and twenty years seemed to have been dropped from his age. There was an intensity about him, too, and also a proprietor-like compulsion, which decided Gail on a certain diversion she had entertained. She was oppressed with men to-night. The world was full of them, and they had closed too nearly around her.