Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/218

 Somehow I was born different, but I've never been able to get away, never seen anything else, except in my imagination. There was nobody. . . he hesitated for an instant as he thought of Lennie Colman, and then rushed on: absolutely nobody to talk to here, until. . . tantalizingly, he paused.

The Countess's eyelids fluttered. Yes, she queried, faintly, until. . . ?

Until you came.

But can't you get away? she forced herself to demand of him. Aren't you going to college, for instance?

That's just it, I can't. My mother says yes; my father says no. He can afford it all right, Gareth added bitterly, but he doesn't see the use of an education. . . . There would be no use of it if I went into business as he wants me to. . . and he's obstinate. My mother might bring him round perhaps, but she's ill, too ill. I can't let her argue with him any more; I've given up.

Poor boy, I'm so sorry, so sorry; the Countess's tone was more than sympathetic, but Gareth's remarks had relieved her mind of an insistent anxiety. I've met a Mrs. Johns somewhere, she went on tentatively. Is that. . . ?

Yes, that must have been mother. We're the only Johns family in Maple Valley.

A charming woman, the Countess asseverated, although she had no recollection of her at all. I liked her at once, so simple. ..