Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: By Wit of Woman by Marchmont Arthur W Vedder Simon Harmon Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 2697 lines and 82823 words, and 54 pages
asked, as soon as she had left to fetch it.
I laughed.
"How could it, your Excellency? What could a girl in my position, here only a few weeks, possibly know about such a thing?"
As this was the thought obviously running in his own mind, he had no difficulty in assenting to it politely.
"Then what does this mean?" he asked, with a little fretful frown of inquisitiveness.
"I am only proving my self-diagnosis as a somewhat unusual person. Will you move now?"
He bent forward and scanned the pieces; but his thoughts were not following his eyes, and with an impatient gesture he leaned back again. I continued to study the board as though the game were all in all to me.
"You are pleased to be mysterious, Miss Gilmore;" he said, his tone a mingling of severity, sarcasm and irritation. I was to understand that a man of his exalted importance was not to be trifled with. "I appreciate greatly your valuable services, but I do not like mysteries."
I raised my eyes from the board as if reluctantly.
"I am unlike your Excellency in that. They have a distinct attraction for me. This has." I indicated the mate problem with my hand, but my eyes contradicted the gesture. He believed the eyes, and again moved uneasily in his chair. "It is naturally an attractive problem. I have moved, you know."
He was a very legible man for all his diplomatic experience; and the little struggle between his sense of dignity and piqued curiosity was quite amusing. But I was careful not to show my amusement. Nothing more was said until the envelope had been brought and Charlotte sent away again.
He toyed with it, trying to appear as if it were part of some silly childish game to which he had been induced to condescend in order to please me.
"What shall I do with this?"
"Suppose you open it?" I said, blandly.
He shrugged his shoulders, waved his white hand, lifted his eyebrows and smiled, obviously excusing himself to himself for his participation in anything so puerile; and then opened it slowly.
But the moment he read the contents his manner changed completely. His clear-cut features set, his expression grew suddenly tense with astonishment, his lips were pressed close together to check the exclamation of surprise that rose to them; even his colour changed slightly, and his eyes were like two steel flints for hardness as he looked up from the paper and across the chessmen at me.
I enjoyed my moment of triumph.
He waved the game out of consideration impatiently.
"What does this mean?" he asked, almost sternly.
"Miss Gilmore!" he exclaimed, very sharply.
I made a carefully calculated pause and then replied, choosing my words with deliberation: "It is the answer to your Excellency's question as to my opinion of the solution. If you have followed my formula, you have of course found the jewels. The Count was the thief."
"In God's name!" he cried, glancing round as though the very furniture must not hear such a word so applied.
"It was so obvious," I observed, with a carelessness more affected than real.
He sat in silence for some moments as he fingered the paper, and then striking a match burnt it with great deliberation, watching it jealously until every stroke of my writing was consumed.
"You say Charlotte has had this nearly a week?"
"The date was on it. I am always methodical," I replied, slowly. "I meant to prove to you that I can read things."
His eyes were even harder than before and his face very stern as he paused before replying with well-weighed significance:
"I fear you are too clever a young woman to have further charge of my two daughters, Miss Gilmore. I will consider and speak to you later."
"I agree with you, of course. But why later? Why not now? My object in coming here was not to be governess to your children, but to enter the service of the Government. This is the evidence of my capacity; and it is all part of my purpose. I am not a good teacher, I know; but I can do better than teach."
He listened to me attentively, his white finger-tips pressed together, and his lips pursed; and when I finished he frowned--not in anger but in thought. Presently a slight smile, very slight and rather grim, drew down the corners of his mouth. And then I knew that I had matriculated as an agent of the Government.
"Shall we finish the game, your Excellency?"
"Which?" he asked laconically, a twinkle in the hard eyes.
"It is of course for your Excellency to decide."
"You are a good player, Miss Gilmore. Where did you learn?"
"I have always been fond of problems."
"And good at guessing?"
"It is not all guessing--at chess," I replied, meaningly. "One has to see two or three moves ahead and to anticipate your opponent's moves."
A short laugh slipped out. "Let us play this out. You may have made a miscalculation," he said, and bent over the board.
"Not in this game, your Excellency."
"You are very confident."
"Because I am sure of winning."
He grunted another laugh and after studying the position, made a move.
"I foresaw your Excellency's move. It is my chance. Check now, of course, and mate, next move."
"I know when I am outplayed," he said, with a glance. "I resign. And now we will talk. You play a good game and a bold one, Miss Gilmore, but chess is not politics."
"True. Politics require less brains, the stakes are worth winning, and men bar women from competing."
"It is rare to find girls of your age wishing to compete."
"I am twenty-three," I interjected.
"Still, only a girl: and a girl at your age is generally looking for a lover instead of nursing ambitions."
"And now?" he asked, bluntly.
"I am still a girl, I hope--but with a difference."
"You are not thinking of making a confidant of an old widower like me, are you?"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page