Quick Action by Robert W. Chambers

Author:Robert W. Chambers [Chambers, Robert W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Love stories, Storytelling -- Fiction, Clairvoyants -- Fiction, Crystal gazing -- Fiction
ISBN: 9783962722869
Publisher: OTB ebook
Published: 2018-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

XVIII

For a long while, seated on either side of the slumbering puppy, they remained silent, in fascinated contemplation of what they had rescued.

Finally Gray said slowly: "It may seem odd to you that I should be so firm and uncompromising concerning my right to a very small dog which may be duplicated in the North for a few dollars."

She lifted her brown eyes to his, then let them fall again on the dog.

"The reason is this," said Gray. "The native dogs I dislike intensely. Dogs imported from the North soon die in this region. But this little pup was evidently born on shipboard and on tropical seas. I think he's very likely to survive the climate. And as I am obliged to reside here for a while, and as I am to live all alone, this pup is a godsend to me."

The girl, still resting her eyes on the sleeping puppy, said very quietly:

"I do not desire to appear selfish, but a girl is twice as lonely as a man. And as I fortunately first discovered the dog it seems to me absolutely right and just that I should keep him."

Gray sat pouring sand through his fingers and casting an occasional oblique glance at the girl. She was not sunburned, so she must be a recent arrival. She spoke with a northern accent, which determined her origin.

What was she doing down here on this absurd island? Why didn't she go back to St. Augustine where she belonged?

"You know," he said craftily, "I can buy a very nice little dog indeed for you in St. Augustine."

"I am not stopping in St. Augustine. Besides, there are only horrid little lap-dogs there."

"Don't you like lap-dogs—Pomms, Pekinese, Maltese?" he inquired persuasively.

"No."

"You are unlike the majority of girls then. What sort of dog do you like?"

"Setters," she explained with decision.

And as he bit his lip in annoyed silence she added:

"Setter puppies are what I adore."

"I'm sorry," he said bluntly.

She added, not heeding his observation: "I am mad about setter puppies, particularly English setter puppies. And when I try to realise that I discovered a shipwrecked one all by myself, and rescued it, I can scarcely believe in such an adorable miracle."

It was on the tip of his tongue to offer to purchase the pup, but a quick glance at the girl checked him. She was evidently perfectly sincere, and the quality of her was unmistakable.

Already, within these few minutes, her skin had begun to burn a delicate rose tint from the sun's fierce reflection on the white sands. Her hair was a splendid golden brown, her eyes darker, or perhaps the long, dark lashes made them seem so. She was daintily and prettily made, head, throat, shoulders, and limbs; she wore a summer gown so waistless and limp that it conformed to the corsetless fashions in vogue, making evident here and there the contours of her slim and supple figure.

From the tip of her white shoe to the tip of her hat she was the futile and exquisite essence of Gotham.

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