Kitabı oku: «Маленькая хозяйка большого дома / The Little Lady Of The Big House», sayfa 13

“Tell me,” she asked abruptly, almost tragically, “about this wild young romance, about this young woman when he was young, fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen?” Dick replied promptly. “Eighteen. They had been married for three years before she died. In fact, they were actually married, by a Church, and living in wedlock, about the same moment that you were born.”

“Yes, yes—go on,” she urged nervously. “What was she like?”

“She was a resplendent, golden-brown Polynesian queen whose mother had been a queen before her, whose father was an Oxford man, an English gentleman, and a real scholar. Her name was Nomare. She was Queen of Huahoa. She was barbaric. He was young enough. There was nothing sordid in their marriage. He was no penniless adventurer. She brought him her island kingdom and forty thousand men. He brought to that island his fortune—and it was no inconsiderable fortune. He built a palace that noSouth Sea⁵⁸ island ever possessed before or will ever possess again. Heavens! They had their own royal yacht, their mountain house, their canoe house. I know. I have been at great feasts in it.

When she died, no one knew where Graham was. Oh, what’s the use in telling any more. He was only a boy. She was half-English, half-Polynesian, and a really and truly queen. They were flowers of their races. They were a pair of wonderful children. They lived a fairy tale. And … well, Ernestine, the years have passed, and Evan Graham has passed from the realm of the youth. It will be a remarkable woman that will ever infatuate him now. Besides, he’s practically broke. Though he didn’t waste his money. As much misfortune, and more, than anything else.”

“Paula is more his kind,” Ernestine said meditatively.

“Yes, indeed,” Dick agreed. “Paula, or any woman as remarkable as Paula, will attract him a thousand times more than all the sweet, young, lovely things like you in the world. We oldsters have our standards, you know.”

“And I’ll have to pay attention at the youngsters,” Ernestine sighed.

“In the meantime, yes,” he chuckled. “Remembering, always, that you, too, in time, may grow into the remarkable, mature woman, who can catch a man like Evan.”

“But I shall be married long before that,” she pouted.

“Which is for the best, my dear. And, now, good night. And you are not angry with me?”

She smiled pathetically and shook her head, put up her lips to be kissed.

Dick Forrest, turning off lights as he went, penetrated the library, and smiled at recollection of the interview with his sister-in-law. He was confident that he had spoken in time. But a remark of Ernestine was echoing in his consciousness: “Paula is more his kind.”