Island in the Dawn Read Free Page B

you through the plantation.”
    “She thought it best to remain with the luggage,” Felicity explained, and the curve of his lips struck her as a little odd.
    “The luggage would have been quite safe,” he said. “There are no thieves on the island,”
    Felicity instantly flushed, in a way that made her look infinitely attractive — although of course he couldn’t see that.
    “I think she was a little exhausted ... This heat is rather sudden for us, and she couldn’t remember quite how far it was to the house.”
    “So you decided to be the pioneer and look for it? And James Menzies! Well, unhappily for Miss Wood he is probably at the opposite end of the world at this precise moment — when he left here he was pl annin g a leisurely and extended tour of the globe — and if she’s been looking forward to meeting him it will be a bit of a disappointment. But she can’t have been in very close touch with him for some time.”
    “Not very close touch,” Felicity had to admit “But she — she planned to give him a surprise!”
    “Not always a wise thing to do,” the man returned on a note of dryness, “not even when you’re certain the person you plan to surprise is where you expect to find him — or her, as the case may be!”
    Felicity was silent, sipping her drink, and it struck her that the dryness in his voice was particularly noticeable when he uttered those last words.
    She felt nervous because he was standing quite near to her, and he seemed to be studying her through the dark glasses. He was elegantly dressed, in an immaculate light grey suit, and Felicity noticed how his linen emphasized the attractive bronze of his skin. He might be without the use of his eyes, but he looked very fit; once again she was reminded of the coiled spring.
    “Please help yourself to the lime juice,” he said. “The jug is at your elbow.”
    “‘Thank you.” Once again she glanced at him, wondering how he knew that. “Can’t I — can’t I pour you some?”
    “No, thank you. When your friend — I beg your pardon, your employer — gets here with Michael, we’ll have breakfast. I don’t suppose you breakfasted on the steamer, did you? They’re not very civilized vessels, and in any case it was a little early for that.”
    Felicity found herself agreeing with him once again.
    “I can hardly believe that not very many hours ago I was in London! All this is a great change for me.”
    “You flew out?”
    “As far as we could — yes.”
    “And now that you’re here, how do you like it? How does Menzies Island strike you?”
    “Oh, I think it’s indescribably beautiful! So beautiful that I can’t take it in — not yet! ”
    “As impressive as all that?”
    Yet again the dryness in his voice seemed unnatural, until all at once she realized that he had probably never seen the beauty that was out there under the blazing run, and a fresh sensation of horror smote her, a feeling almost of guilt.
    “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m so sorry ! ”
    He moved to a chair that was a little far away, and hastily she left her own chair to help him. In her impulsiveness she caught his arm, and the dog growled.
    “Quiet, Bruno!” said the dark man, with a whimsical expression on his face which Felicity in her anxiety didn’t see, and as he dropped into the chair he thanked her courteously, and at the same time removed his glasses. A pair of the bluest eyes she had ever seen in her life regarded her with that same whimsicality, and some faultless white teeth flashed as he smiled at her.
    “I am not blind, Miss — ?”
    “Harding,” she supplied, almost abjectly.
    “I am no longer blind, I should say,” he corrected hims elf — “no longer entirely blind, that is! A year ago, when I came here, I had little hope of recovering my sight, but I have been undergoing treatment during recent months, and the sight is returning! I can see you quite clearly — I could even see you out there in the