Beloved Scoundrel Read Free

serious eyes. “And yet I know I must forever take second place in your heart!”
     
    “David, please!”
     
    “No,” he said, “it should be mentioned and accepted. I know you risked your career and endured scandal for George Palmer. You and he could have been married had the resulting scandal not threatened to destroy you both. That was why Charles Palmer hoped you would marry him. You had to leave England.”
     
    “I chose you,” she said.
     
    His handsome face took on a brighter look. “That is what l cling to. I was your second choice. So now we both must forget all that happened back home. That is all another life. Our new existence will date from today. Our first day in America!”
     
    She nodded happily. “That is how I feel. We shall have a wonderful life over here and great success. You are such a fine actor you deserve it.”
     
    “And you were one of the most popular young women on the London stage,” he said proudly. “l have chosen my wife and leading lady well.”
     
    Fanny went about unpacking and David helped her. While they were working there was a knock at the door and it was Mrs. Larkins with some towels over her arm. She said, “Fresh towels for you! And you must come down for the noon meal. It will be served very shortly.”
     
    “Thank you,” Fanny said in friendly fashion. “We are strangers to America. Many of the customs here will be new to us.”
     
    “Not all that different,” Mrs. Larkins assured her. “I have had English theatre people here before. And I like them. Their manners are better than most and they speak so nicely.”
     
    David smiled. “Do you have many theatre people among your lodgers now?”
     
    “Most of them are show folk though in different branches of the profession,” the pleasant landlady told them. “There will be only a few in the dining room for lunch since many of the regulars are rehearsing or having a lunch somewhere else.”
     
    “It is like that in the lodging houses in London,” Fanny agreed.
     
    “You’re a true beauty!” Mrs. Larkins said with admiration. “You’ve got the even sort of features that last! And your hair, a lovely shade of red! I can tell from the way you speak and conduct yourself you are a real lady!”
     
    “She is that,” David said good-humoredly as he placed an arm about Fanny’s waist. “Hob-nobbed with the gentry, she has. But she’s an actor’s daughter and she’s never forgotten she is one of us.”
     
    “I should hope not!” Fanny said.
     
    “Well, good luck to you,” their landlady said. “It is not an easy life. I’ve found that out after catering to theatricals these last twenty years!” And she went on her way.
     
    They went down the two flights of stairs and ventured rather timidly into the communal dining room. A maid moved about busily serving the various tables and there was the strong aroma of good beef stew in the air. Only a few of the places at the various tables were occupied. As they hesitated in the doorway a figure suddenly bobbed up from the nearest table.
     
    “Do come join I us,” the man said. Fanny thought he was the tallest, most slender man she had ever met. He was balding and had a white chin-whisker.
     
    “Thank you,” David said, leading her forward.
     
    “I am Ernest Sherman and this is my wife, ‘Little Emmie,’ “ The thin man said with pleasure.
     
    Fanny tried without too much success to hide her shock. For seated at the table with the incredibly thin man was one of the fattest human beings she had ever seen. ‘Little Emmie’ as her husband had termed her was enormous. She wore a cotton print dress with a round neck and her brass-colored hair was curly and arranged in an upsweep. She had a pretty face for all her fat and was much younger than her husband. Perhaps only in her twenties.
     
    She smiled warmly at David and Fanny and in a shrill voice said, “A great pleasure! You will forgive my not rising. I have so much to move!” And