Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/433

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN "Yes," replied Edna. "The captain has to go away, and I am going with him."

"That is all right," said Mrs. Cliff. "Of course I was a little surprised at first. But how about the gold? How much was there of it? And what is he going to do with it?"

"He scarcely mentioned the gold," replied Edna. "We had more precious things to talk about. When he sees us all together, you and I and Ralph, he will tell us what he has done, and what he is going to do, and—"

"And we can say what we please?" cried Mrs. Cliff.

"Yes," said Edna, "to whomever we please."

"Thank the Lord!" exclaimed Mrs. Cliff. "That is almost as good as being married."

his arrival in Paris the night before, Captain Horn had taken lodgings at a hotel not far from the Hôtel Grenade, and the first thing he did the next morning was to visit Edna. He had supposed, of course, that she was at the same hotel in which Mrs. Cliff resided, which address he had got from Wraxton, in Marseilles, and he had expected to see the elderly lady first, and to get some idea of how matters stood before meeting Edna. He was in Paris alone. He had left Shirley and Burke, with the negroes, in Marseilles. He had wished to do nothing, to make no arrangements for any one, until he had seen Edna, and had found out what his future life was to be.

Now, as he walked back to his hotel, that future life lay before him radiant and resplendent. No avenue in Paris, or in any part of the world, blazing with the lights of some grand festival, ever shone with such 417