Alpha Book

In the dry, sweet grass she found a place for a nest, and settled into
it, head prone on a heap of scented bay leaves, elbows skyward, and
fingers linked across her chin. One foot was hidden, the knee, doubled,
making a tent of her white skirt, from an edge of which a russet shoe
projected, revealing the contour of a slim ankle.
"What book did you bring?" she asked dreamily.
He turned red: "It's--it's just a chapter from a little book I'm trying
to write--a--a sort of suggestion for the establishment of native
regiments in the Philippines. I thought, perhaps, you might not mind
listening--"
Her delighted surprise and quick cordiality quite overwhelmed him, so,
sitting flat on the grass, hat off and the hill wind furrowing his
bright crisp hair, he began, naively, like a schoolboy; and Eileen lay
watching him, touched and amused at his eager interest in reading aloud
to her this mass of co-ordinated fact and detail.
There was, in her, one quality to which he had never appealed in
vain--her loyalty.


Pages:
412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436