Любимые повести на английском / Best Short Novels

I should marry the daughter of some well-to-do wholesale hardware man from Omaha[43 - Omaha – Омаха, город на западном берегу реки Миссисипи на востоке штата Небраска.] or Sioux City,[44 - Sioux City – Сиу-Сити, город, основанный в 1854 г. на реке Миссури, на северо-западе штата Айова.] and be content with her half-million.’

�I knew the daughter of a wholesale hardware man once,’ remarked Kismine.

�I don’t think you’d have been contented with her. She was a friend of my sister’s. She visited here.’

�Oh, then you’ve had other guests?’ exclaimed John in surprise.

Kismine seemed to regret her words.

�Oh, yes,’ she said hurriedly, �we’ve had a few.’

�But aren’t you – wasn’t your father afraid they’d talk outside?’

�Oh, to some extent, to some extent,’ she answered. �Let’s talk about something pleasanter.’

But John’s curiosity was aroused.

�Something pleasanter!’ he demanded. �What’s unpleasant about that? Weren’t they nice girls?’

To his great surprise Kismine began to weep.

�Yes – th – that’s the – the whole t-trouble. I grew qu-quite attached to some of them. So did Jasmine, but she kept inv-viting them anyway. I couldn’t understand it.’

A dark suspicion was born in John’s heart.

�Do you mean that they told, and your father had them – removed?’

�Worse than that,’ she muttered brokenly.

�Father took no chances – and Jasmine kept writing them to come, and they had such a good time!’

She was overcome by a paroxysm of grief.

Stunned with the horror of this revelation, John sat there open-mouthed, feeling the nerves of his body twitter like so many sparrows perched upon his spinal column.

�Now, I’ve told you, and I shouldn’t have,’ she said, calming suddenly and drying her dark blue eyes.

�Do you mean to say that your father had them murdered before they left?’

She nodded.

�In August usually – or early in September. It’s only natural for us to get all the pleasure out of them that we can first.’

�How abominable! How – why, I must be going crazy! Did you really admit that – ’

�I did,’ interrupted Kismine, shrugging her shoulders. �We can’t very well imprison them like those aviators, where they’d be a continual reproach to us every day.