Читать книгу On the Brink of a Chasm: A record of plot and passion онлайн

7 страница из 79

“The rooms are packed and the heat is stifling. Why should you join that overheated throng? As to your mother wanting you, she told me where I should find you, and said nothing about asking you to go to her. Please stay——”

Barbara paused with her hand upon the frame of the open window.

“Yes?” she asked in an interrogative way.

“I should not have left a dying man if I had not a special reason for doing so.”

“Yes?” replied Barbara again.

“You are the reason.”

“I am very sorry indeed to hear it, Dr. Tarbot. I do not think your reason adequate. Now I must go back to our guests.”

“You must not,” said Dr. Tarbot firmly. “I came here with the express purpose of seeing you, and I will not be foiled. You will stay with me for a moment or two. I want to say, to say——”

Barbara returned once more to the balcony. She saw that the man must have his opportunity, and she knew that she was in for a bad quarter of an hour. She closed her big fan and held it in both hands.

“You know what I want to say.”

“Yes,” replied Barbara. She made a short pause before she uttered the single word. Then she added, marked deliberation in her tone, “Is it a gentlemanly action to detain a girl against her will?”