Читать книгу Dr. Wainwright's Patient. A Novel онлайн

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Within five minutes of the chiming of the clock, the great hall-door was opened so quietly that it was perfectly apparent the demonstrative page was not behind it. A young woman, simply and elegantly dressed in a tight-fitting black silk gown, and a small straw bonnet trimmed with green ribbon, with a black lace shawl thrown loosely across her shoulders and hanging down behind, after a French fashion then in vogue, passed out, closing the door softly behind her, and started off in the direction of the Park. Then Paul Derinzy left his hiding-place, and, at a discreet distance, followed in pursuit.

There must have been something very odd or very attractive in the personal appearance of this young woman, for she undoubtedly attracted a vast deal of attention as she passed through the streets. It would require something special, one would imagine, to intervene between a man and the toothache; and yet a gentleman seated in a dentist's ante-room in George Street, with a face swollen to twice its natural size, and all out of drawing, and vainly endeavouring to solace himself, and to forget the coming wrench, with the pleasant pages of a ten-years'-old Bentleys Miscellany, flung the book aside as he saw the girl go by, and crammed himself into a corner of the window to look after her retreating figure. Two sporting gentlemen standing at the freshly-sanded door of Limmer's Hotel, smoking cigars, and muttering to each other in whispers of forthcoming "events," suspended their conversation and exchanged a rapid wink as she flitted by them. The old boys sunning themselves in Bond Street, pottering into Ebers' for their stalls, or pricing fish at Groves's, were very much fluttered by the girl's transient appearance among them. The little head was carried very erect, and there must have been something in the expression of the face which daunted the veterans, and prevented them from addressing her. One or two gave chase, but soon found out that the gouty feet so neatly incased in varnished boots had no chance with this modern Atalanta, who sailed away without a check, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Nor were men her only admirers; ladies sitting in their carriages at shop-doors would look at her half in wonderment, half in admiration, and whisper to each other: "What a pretty girl!" and these compliments pleased her immensely, and brought the colour to her face, adding to her beauty.