The Trumpeter Swan by Temple Bailey
page 4 of 361 (01%)
page 4 of 361 (01%)
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They had gone to bed unaware of the estate or circumstance of their
fellow-travellers, and had waked to find the train delayed by washouts, and side-tracked until more could be learned of the condition of the road. The man in the drawing-room shone, in the few glimpses that the others had of him, with an effulgence which was dazzling. His valet, the intermittent sleeper in the end berth, was a smug little soul, with a small nose which pointed to the stars. When the door of the compartment opened to admit breakfast there was the radiance of a brocade dressing-gown, the shine of a sleek head, the staccato of an imperious voice. Randy Paine, long and lank, in faded khaki, rose, leaned over the seat of the section in front of him and drawled, "'It is not raining rain to me--it's raining roses--down----'" A pleasant laugh, and a deep voice, "Come around here and talk to me. You're a Virginian, aren't you?" "By the grace of God and the discrimination of my ancestors," young Randolph, as he dropped into the seat opposite the man with the deep voice, saluted the dead and gone Paines. "Then you know this part of it?" "I was born here. In this county. It is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," there was a break in the boy's voice which robbed the words of grandiloquence. |
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