Island in the Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

want to come back — not for ages, anyway!”
    “I suppose that could be the explanation,” Felicity said, while Cassandra examined her nails, and decided to remove the particular shade of nail varnish she was wearing. And suddenly Felicity had to say it: “How could you make that awful remark about his blindness, Sandra? Mr. Halloran’s blindness, I mean! It was — well, I thought it was — dreadful!”
    Cassandra looked .at her with her slim eyebrows raised. And suddenly she laughed, her long, greenish - blue eyes gle aming strangely, the thick lashes ’fluttering amusedly, but certainly not with any embarrassment.
    “My dear girl, I’ve always had a horror of blind people — and I just said so! Of course, when I said it I thought that Paul Halloran really was blind. Those dark glasses, and his queer way of standing very still, as if he was a little afraid of making a move which might bring him into contact with a piece of furniture, and the dog that I took to be a guide-dog standing beside him, were very misleading. And of course I didn’t know at the time that he was Paul Halloran — the Paul Halloran!”
    “If you’d discovered that he was Paul Halloran, and he’d still remained blind, would you have experienced the same sort of revulsion?” Felicity heard herself asking, because for some reason she was really curious.
    Cassandra shrugged slightly.
    “How would I know?” she demanded. “But somehow it’s impossible to imagine those extraordinary vivid eyes of his without any sight in them? They’re so clear — a sort of searchlight clarity, have you noticed? He’s got only the tiniest scar above one eyebrow to recall his accident, and his Italian blood shows in that intensely dark hair, and the slight swarthiness of his skin. Eighteen months ago women ran after him as if he was a matin e e idol ... There was one woman, whom he didn’t mention — after all, why should he? — Who was killed in the same car crash that deprived him temporarily of his sight!”
    She went on carefully applying fresh varnish to her nails.
    Felicity deposited a pile of underwear somewhat hastily in a drawer, and then straightened and said: “Oh! ... How—how do you know?”
    Cassandra smiled at her, the smile which she cultivated, and which was distinguished by a hint of the Mona Lisa’s strangely baffling quality.
    “I just do know! You’ll admit I was right about the date of the accident — and about that last concert of our host’s in Milan! The woman was beautiful, and he was in love with her — that much I can tell you also, and my facts are not the sort to fall down under cross - examination! They are the facts ! ... But naturally I thought it best not to reveal that I had so much knowledge downstairs just now!”
    Felicity closed the drawer upon the filmy underthings, and then went through into her own room, which was rosy pink and grey, like the haze that had developed the island at dawn.
    In spite of Cassandra’s intimation to Florence that they would breakfast in their rooms, they did not after all do so. Once Cassandra had enjoyed a bath and changed into a cool cotton dress with a sun-top that left her shapely shoulders bare, and a little jacket which she carried over her arm that could be donned if the sun’s attentions became too fierce, she felt sufficiently revived to wish to rejoin her host. Felicity had no alternative but to accompany her down to the broad main veranda.
    They found comfortable rattan chairs, and a table had been laid for breakfast in a corner where the lemon light of the sun no longer found its way. In addition an electric fan churned up a pleasing apology for coolness.
    The table was bright with attractive china and an enormous bowl o f fruit spilling over with the island’s produce. There were grape fruit that looked like balls of pale fire, bananas, figs, and oranges, as well as bunches of purple grapes such as Felicity had never seen before — save in a hot house