Running Free

JAMES B. CONNOLLY
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK ::::::::::::::::::::: 1917
COPYRIGHT, 1913, 1915, 1917, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1912, 1913, 1917, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON, INCORPORATED COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS

I arrived in Santacruz in the early evening, and as I stepped out of the carriage with the children the majordomo came rushing out from under the hotel portales and said: Meesus Trench, is it? Your suite awaits, madam. The Lieutenant Trench from the American warship has ordered, madam.
There was a girl, not too young, sitting over at a small table, and at the name Trench, pronounced in the round voice of the majordomo, she—well, she was sitting by herself, smoking a cigarette, and I did not know why she should smile and look at me—in just that way, I mean. But I can muster some poise of manner myself when I choose—I looked at her. And she looked me over and smiled again. And I did not like that smile. It was as if—as Ned would say—she had something on me.
She and I were to be enemies—already I saw that. She was making smoke rings, and she never hurried the making of a single one of them as she looked at me; nor did I hurry a particle the ushering of the two children and the maid into the hotel. But I did ask, after I had greeted Nan and her mother inside: Auntie—or you, Nan—who is the oleander blossom smoking the cigarette out under the portales?