Imprudent Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

appeared. He had bumped into Murray downtown, wanted to talk to him, and when the latter said he had to stop at Miss Mallow's for a moment, Dammler had perforce come with him. The lady's name had not even registered until Murray reminded him who she was. But he was well-bred, and when Prudence went with shaking knees to the saloon, he claimed joy at another chance of talking to her, and thanked her for sending him her book. She was overwhelmed anew at his grandeur. No hint of a sharp insinuation as to what he had done with the book was made. She said so little that she was afraid she was appearing stupid.
    Mr. Murray gave her some papers to sign, and she wrote her name blindly without looking to see what she was putting her signature to.
    “Miss Mallow is a trusting person, John,” Dammler chided upon seeing this, and Murray made a joking reply which went unheard, and consequently unanswered, by Miss Mallow.
    One thought was uppermost in her mind. She had not complimented Dammler, and that she was determined to do. “I have read all your poems,” she said in a stricken voice. “I liked them very much."
    “Thank you, ma'am,” he replied. As she said nothing further, he went on in the interest of civility to add mendaciously, “and I read the book you so kindly sent me, and liked it very much indeed. We writers must stick together and praise each other, must we not?"
    “Yes,” she said, and thought to herself—he's lying. How well he lies. She could see that the visit, an unparalleled chance for making a favourable impression on Dammler, was going poorly. Not a word could she think of to say. But the meeting soon took a turn for the worse. Uncle Clarence, alerted by a servant as to who had come to call, came dashing into the saloon, a white rag in his hands with which he wiped paint from his fingers.
    “Lord Dammler, indeed this is an honour,” he said in a sonorous voice, without waiting for an introduction. “My niece has been telling me all about you.” He grabbed Dammler's hand and pumped furiously.
    “This is my uncle, Mr. Elmtree,” Prudence said helplessly, and from that one speech on, she couldn't have got a word in if she had wanted to. Dammler's works, which Clarence had never read, were praised to the skies. Shakespeare, Milton—all those fellows were nothing to him. From Lord Dammler he turned to his niece's works. There was no danger of her being Wilma's daughter today. They too were admired, unread, as being the only thing in the English language capable of comparison to Dammler's cantos. “I don't give praise lightly,” he added in a judicial manner. “I have no opinion of books in general—go a year at a time without opening a book—but serious literature of the sort you two write is always a pleasure to read. Yes, I will certainly read Cantos from Abroad. Read them again," he amended, as Lord Dammler's mouth fell open at this conclusion to his long encomium.
    The poet indicated by a slight jerk of his head to Murray that he would like to leave. Appalled at the meeting, Prudence did nothing to detain them.
    “Oh, a glass of wine. Surely you will do me the honour to take a glass of wine before you leave,” Clarence said. He gave no chance for refusal, but pulled a cord and summoned a servant to fetch it at once.
    The delay gave Clarence a chance to mount his own hobby horse. “Are you interested in art at all, my lord?” he asked the guest.
    “Yes, indeed. I saw some very fine pieces in Greece,” Dammler answered, thinking to get over the next quarter of an hour with a good discussion of art. The poor fellow was a fool on the subject of literature, but might know something of art, as he had raised the subject.
    “Oh, Greece, there is nothing there but rubble,” Clarence informed him, dismissing at a word the entire classical heritage. Dammler stared, and a smile slowly formed on his face.
    “Indeed?” he said in his most drawling, affected voice.
    “Smashed to bits, all of it.