The Mystery of Edwin Drood Read Online Free PDF Page B

know what would happen. Some of them would begin reflecting on me by
saying (for THEY are free) that they never will on any account engage
themselves to lovers without polished leather boots. Hark! Miss Twinkleton.
I'll ask for leave.”
     
  That discreet lady being indeed heard
without, inquiring of nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances:
“Eh? Indeed! Are you quite sure you saw my mother-of-pearl button-holder on the
work-table in my room?” is at once solicited for walking leave, and graciously
accords it. And soon the young couple go out of the Nuns' House, taking all
precautions against the discovery of the so vitally defective boots of Mr.
Edwin Drood: precautions, let us hope, effective for the peace of Mrs. Edwin
Drood that is to be.
     
  “Which way shall we take, Rosa?”
     
  Rosa replies: “I want to go to the
Lumps-of-Delight shop.”
     
  “To the—?”
     
  “A Turkish sweetmeat, sir. My gracious
me, don't you understand anything? Call yourself an Engineer, and not know
THAT?”
     
  “Why, how should I know it, Rosa?”
     
  “Because I am very fond of them. But O!
I forgot what we are to pretend. No, you needn't know anything about them;
never mind.”
     
  So he is gloomily borne off to the
Lumps-of-Delight shop, where Rosa makes her purchase, and, after offering some
to him (which he rather indignantly declines), begins to partake of it with
great zest: previously taking off and rolling up a pair of little pink gloves,
like rose-leaves, and occasionally putting her little pink fingers to her rosy
lips, to cleanse them from the Dust of Delight that comes off the Lumps.
     
  “Now, be a good-tempered Eddy, and
pretend. And so you are engaged?”
     
  “And so I am engaged.”
     
  “Is she nice?”
     
  “Charming.”
     
  “Tall?”
     
  “Immensely tall!” Rosa being short.
     
  “Must be gawky, I should think,” is
Rosa's quiet commentary.
     
  “I beg your pardon; not at all,”
contradiction rising in him.
     
  “What is termed a fine woman; a splendid
woman.”
     
  “Big nose, no doubt,” is the quiet
commentary again.
     
  “Not a little one, certainly,” is the
quick reply, (Rosa's being a little one.)
     
  “Long pale nose, with a red knob in the
middle. I know the sort of nose,” says Rosa, with a satisfied nod, and
tranquilly enjoying the Lumps.
     
  “You DON'T know the sort of nose, Rosa,”
with some warmth; “because it's nothing of the kind.”
     
  “Not a pale nose, Eddy?”
     
  “No.” Determined not to assent.
     
  “A red nose? O! I don't like red noses.
However; to be sure she can always powder it.”
     
  “She would scorn to powder it,” says
Edwin, becoming heated.
     
  “Would she? What a stupid thing she must
be! Is she stupid in everything?”
     
  “No; in nothing.”
     
  After a pause, in which the whimsically
wicked face has not been unobservant of him, Rosa says:
     
  “And this most sensible of creatures
likes the idea of being carried off to Egypt; does she, Eddy?”
     
  “Yes. She takes a sensible interest in
triumphs of engineering skill: especially when they are to change the whole
condition of an undeveloped country.”
     
  “Lor!” says Rosa, shrugging her
shoulders, with a little laugh of wonder.
     
  “Do you object,” Edwin inquires, with a
majestic turn of his eyes downward upon the fairy figure: “do you object, Rosa,
to her feeling that interest?”
     
  “Object? my dear Eddy! But really,
doesn't she hate boilers and things?”
     
  “I can answer for her not being so
idiotic as to hate Boilers,” he returns with angry emphasis; “though I cannot
answer for her views about Things; really not understanding what Things are
meant.”
     
  “But don't she hate Arabs, and Turks,
and Fellahs, and people?”
     
  “Certainly not.” Very firmly.
     
  “At least she MUST hate the