Lord John in New York
a nurse in my sister-in-law's home I should never have left it. For she was one of those girls who, if there were only half a dozen men remaining in the world at the end of the war, would be certain to receive proposals from at least five. She was the type of the Eternal Feminine, the woman of our dreams, the face in the sunset and moonbeams. Perhaps you have seen such a face in real life—just once. 

 The girl had on a small squirrel toque and a long squirrel coat. She was wrapped in a squirrel rug to match. She had reddish-brown hair. All the girls who can take the last men in the world away from all the other women have more or less of that red glint in their hair. Yet she seemed far from anxious to take the man who came striding along the deck and stopped in front of her as the ship got under way. 

 What she did was to look up and cry out a horrified "Oh!"  Her cheeks, which had been pale, flamed red. She half threw off her fur rug, and would have struggled out of her chair if the man had not appealed to her mercy. 

 "Don't run away from me, Grace," he said, "after all these months." 

 The name "Grace" suited the girl, or rather expressed her. The man stared with hungry eyes. I was sorry for him. Somehow, I seemed to know how he felt. He had an American voice and looked like an American—that good, strong type of American who can hold his own anywhere: not tall, not short, not slim, not stout, not very dark, not very fair; square-jawed, square-shouldered; aggressive-featured, kind-eyed; one rebellious lock of brown hair falling over a white forehead. 

 "But—I have been running away from you all these months. I've been doing nothing else. I could do nothing else," she reproached him. They had both forgotten me. Besides, I was not obtrusively near. 

 "Don't I know you've been running away—to my sorrow?" he flung back at her.  "I heard of you in the West Indies. I went there to hunt you down. You'd gone. I dashed home. You hadn't come back. I was told—I won't say by whom—that you were in England. I ran over and got on your track yesterday; flashed off to Bath in a fast auto; reached there just as you'd left for Liverpool to sail on this ship. So now I'm here." 

 She looked up at him, tears on her lashes.  "Oh, Rod!" was all she said. It did not need that name to tell me who he was, but eyes and voice told me something more. She was not flirting with him. She was not pretending to wish that he had 
 Prev. P 10/198 next 
Back Top
Privacy Statement Terms of Service Contact