Four Strange Women by E.R. Punshon Read Free Book Online Page A

rather, all the truth, since all the truth even the colonel himself might not know. Anyhow the violent antagonism between brother and sister was explained, as also Biddle’s attempt to keep all knowledge of it from the visitor.
    â€œThank you,” said the colonel suddenly, and Bobby, at first surprised, understood he was being thanked for the silence he had preserved.
    It continued for a moment or two and then Becky came back into the room, small, swift, and angry. She said:
    â€œI’ve been to Biddle. He’s packing. I told him not to. He’s not been drinking. If any one told you he had, it’s a lie.” This last sentence was accompanied by a fierce look at Bobby that was quite plainly an accusation. “Biddle won’t say a word, but he’s no more been drinking than I have,” she asserted.
    â€œHe upset the car,” the colonel said, “and nearly killed Owen. But Owen tells me Biddle struck him as a very good driver and he doesn’t think it was drink, whatever else it was, made Biddle play the fool the way he did. You can tell Biddle he won’t hear anything more about it and he can thank Mr. Owen for that.”
    The girl turned again her angry, unplacated eyes on Bobby. They said as plainly as possible: ‘What’s the game? Trying to suck up? ’ Without a word of acknowledgment she went away. The colonel remained silent. Bobby continued to interest himself in his sherry. He wondered again if he had better offer to take the next train back to London. He asked himself even if it would not be wiser to do so, for certainly it did not look as though things were going to be easy here. The colonel got up and with a muttered apology left the room. Bobby, now alone, sat down, and felt depressed. A sound of footsteps approaching from without made him look round. There came to the open window a tall, striking-looking woman, one who could almost have been called beautiful, though even Bobby’s untrained masculine eye could tell that some of that beauty was due to a careful and a skilful art. Still the classic regularity of the features, the perfect oval of the face, the graceful bearing, were all nature’s gift; though possibly the exquisite complexion, the pencilled eyebrows, the long, curling lashes, even the soft lustre of the large, dark blue eyes, might all have received a certain encouragement. In any case the effect, combined with an exquisitely thought out toilet most admirably expressive of the innocence and peace of the country—it made you think of nymphs and milkmaids though somehow of Bond Street and Piccadilly, too—was sufficiently striking to bring a somewhat dazzled Bobby to his feet at once.
    In a voice less pleasing, for it was a little harsh, even coarse in its undertones, this vision said:—
    â€œOh, I beg your pardon. I came across before the others. I walked through the shrubbery and round by the rosery. I thought Len was here. Or Colonel Glynne?”
    â€œColonel Glynne was here just now, I expect he’ll be back in a moment,” Bobby answered, slightly confused. “You are Lady May Grayson?”
    She gave him a smile, a dazzling smile, showing lovely teeth, but all the same Bobby thought it would have been more dazzling still had it not been so plainly mechanical, taken from stock, as it were, and swiftly returned for future use as required.
    â€œA society beauty,” he told himself, “only that and nothing more. If you pricked her, she would bleed cocktails and small talk.”
    â€œNow, I wonder how you know who I am?” she said, obviously expecting the obvious reply Bobby promptly made.
    â€œEvery one knows Lady May Grayson,” he answered. “There was the portrait in the last Academy for instance.”
    â€œAnd those perfectly, too utterly awful things they put in the papers,” she sighed, “and you can’t stop them either.” She lifted long, white, slender,