41 Stories by O. Henry Read Free Book Online

he?”
    â€œWhy, bless the child!” said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly; “of course he is. I raised him myself.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t write anything to anybody that wasn’t exactly—I mean that everybody couldn’t know and read, would he?”
    â€œI’d just like to see him try it,” said uncle, tearing a handful from his newspaper. “Why, what—”
    â€œRead this note he just sent me, uncle, and see if you think it’s all right and proper. You see, I don’t know much about city people and their ways.”
    Old Jerome threw his paper down and set both his feet upon it. He took Gilbert’s note and fiercely perused it twice, and then a third time.
    â€œWhy, child,” said he, “you had me almost excited, although I was sure of that boy. He’s a duplicate of his father, and he was a gilt-edged diamond. He only asks if you and Barbara will be ready at four o‘clock this afternoon for an automobile drive over to Long Island. I don’t see anything to criticize in it except the stationery. I always did hate that shade of blue.”
    â€œWould it be all right to go?” asked Nevada, eagerly.
    â€œYes, yes, yes, child, of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to see you so careful and candid. Go, by all means.”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Nevada, demurely. “I thought I’d ask you. Couldn’t you go with us, uncle?”
    â€œI? No, no, no, no! I’ve ridden once in a car that boy was driving. Never again! But it’s entirely proper for you and Barbara to go. Yes, yes. But I will not. No, no, no, no!”
    Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:
    â€œYou bet we’ll go. I’ll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to say to Mr. Warren, ‘You bet we’ll go.’ ”
    â€œNevada,” called old Jerome, “pardon me, my dear, but wouldn’t it be as well to send him a note in reply? Just a line would do.”
    â€œNo, I won’t bother about that,” said Nevada, gayly. “Gilbert will understand—he always does. I never rode in an automobile in my life; but I’ve paddled a canoe down Little Devil River through the Lost Horse Canon, and if it’s any livelier than that I’d like to know!”
    Â 
    III Two months are supposed to have elapsed.
    Barbara sat in the study of the hundred-thousand-dollar house. It was a good place for her. Many places are provided in the world where men and women may repair for the purpose of extricating themselves from divers difficulties. There are cloisters, wailing-places, watering-places, confessionals, hermitages, lawyers’ offices, beauty-parlors, air-ships, and studies; and the greatest of these are studies.
    It usually takes a hypotenuse a long time to discover that it is the longest side of a triangle. But it’s a long line that has no turning.
    Barbara was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study in the study. If you, miss, were a stunning New York girl, and saw every day that a brown, ingenuous Western witch was getting hobbles and a lasso on the young man you wanted for yourself, you, too, would lose taste for the oxidized silver setting of a musical comedy.
    Barbara sat by the quartered-oak library table. Her right arm rested upon the table, and her dextral fingers nervously manipulated a sealed letter. The letter was addressed to Nevada Warren; and in the upper left-hand comer of the envelope was Gilbert’s little gold palette. It had been delivered at nine o‘clock, after Nevada had left.
    Barbara would have given her pearl necklace to know what that letter contained; but she could not open and read it by the aid of steam, or a pen-handle, or a hair-pin, or any of the generally approved methods, because her position in society forbade such an act. She had tried to read some of the lines of the