Read Online Hotel Mirador by Rosalind Brett - Free Book Online Page B

patience you’ll probably be able to walk with one stick in less than six months. It seems so silly to refuse even to try it out.”
    “I know that whatever I go through I’ll always be a cripple.”
    “At least you have your own leg, not an artificial one.” She paused, her glance on his prematurely lined face. “You wouldn’t want to be an emotional cripple as well, would you?”
    There was a brief silence. Mike had tensed suddenly, as if startled and wary, but after a moment he spoke a li ttle unevenly.
    “I sensed yesterday that you see a little farther than most girls, and that’s why I wanted you to stay away. Just leave me alone with it!”
    She answered in reasoning tones, “ I c an’t really. Mr. Ryland brought me here by air and he’s given me a magnificent suite in the hotel. It’s a costly business for him, and the least I can do is peg away at you till you give me a chance of doing all I can for you.” Ostentatiously, she opened the cigarette box and showed him it was empty. “May I have one?”
    He took a box of fifty from his pocket, automatically flipped it open. She waited while he thumbed his lighter, leaned forward just a little so that he could light her cigarette, and stayed there, smiling at him. Mike drew back and lit his own cigarette, and she saw the fingers of his left hand curl rather tightly over the curved wooden arm of the wheel chair.
    “What has Dane told you about me?” he asked offhandedly.
    “That you’re twenty-six, a journalist, were keen on fast cars and attractive girls. I think he was rather disappointed that I’m not prettier.”
    “You might have been forty and tough.”
    “Oh, no, he took care of that. His advertisement insisted on a photograph. I happened to be the least ugly.”
    Mike ignored the unintended cue. “It’s my fault you’re here. If you want to leave, I’ll offer Dane what it cost him to bring you.”
    Sally was vexed, but determined not to show it. “I don’t want to leave; I simply want to do the job I’m engaged for. Tell me, do you always stay indoors?”
    “Pretty well.”
    “How do you spend the time?”
    “Reading and playing chess with an old chap who lives down the road.”
    “I play chess too, but not very well.” She tapped ash into a tiny bowl, and then held the bowl near him so that he could do the same. “This is a lovely little house. I suppose the Frenchwoman who made the garden furnished the place as well?”
    “I believe so. Dane bough t it more or less as it stands.”
    “For you?”
    “For himself, probably.”
    “But he told me he wants nothing better than to live at the Mirador without domestic ties.”
    He shrugged. “Have you met Cécile Vaugard?”
    Queerly, Sally’s breath caught for a second in her throat. “No, but I’ve seen her. She’s ravishing.”
    “She’s also a magnetic singer—and pure French. She’s the only woman Dane ever bothers with, so one day — seeing that he always tries everything once—he’ll take a wife, probably Cécile . When she’s in Shiran, they’ll live in this house, and for the rest of the year Dane will let a friend live here and go back to his suite at the Mirador.”
    “It doesn’t sound much like marriage.”
    “But it will be as much as Dane will want.” He gave a swift, irritable tug at the wheels of the chair and slipped back a yard or so. “Is there anything else you want to know?”
    “Am I too inquisitive? I was quite enjoying the gossip.” She squashed out her cigarette, dusted grains of ash from her skirt. “Don’t you get lonely?”
    “No.” The thin line of his jaw tightened, emphasizing a c hin which was narrow and a little obstinate. “In the course of several months one can evolve a new way of living.”
    “I suppose so, if it’s necessary. But with you it isn’t. You’re just a mule, and unfortunately you’re hurting yourself most.”
    “You don’t say it the way Dane does, but then you’re a girl and you haven’t his