Triumph Read Online Free Page A

it. Or perhaps a new thought erased it. "Maybe. But a Miss Lee is due here soon. And she may find the Great Scientist as fascinating as you do, dear." Valerie explained about Miss Lee.

    Faith seemed interested, but not worried. She rang, if that was what happened, and ordered a martini on the intercom, which eventually Paulus Davey brought. He had changed to a mauve dinner jacket, black silk trousers, pumps, and a dark-purple bow tie.
    Whether that was his own idea or Mrs. Farr's, Ben could not guess.

    The faint sound of door chimes made Paulus change his course. Presently they heard his gentle voice say, with an undertone none of the three people in the living room could interpret but all three caught, "Oh. Miss Lee. Of course! I'll take your luggage and put your car away. You'll want to greet Mrs. Farr."

    A voice that had a strange quality and yet was without accent, an alien but American voice which, to Ben, seemed enchanting, said, "Yes, of course. I'll unpack and change soon, though. So--"

    Then she appeared. She had black, shining hair and dark, dark eyes. She was exquisitely made and dressed in a soft, rosy suit of some sort. Her lips were a rosy-red of the same hue but with a heightened intensity. She came in smiling a little, walking with a very straight and yet not self-conscious carriage. She was--at Ben's guess--a little younger than Faith Farr. Her cheekbones were high, her eyes sloped and almond shaped, and her skin a golden-tan color . . . the ensemble, Ben thought, beautiful as water lilies. Miss Lee, he also thought, and turned to see Valerie react, was not a relation of Robert E., or any such Lee. Indeed, it proved that the lovely young woman spelled her name in a different way: not L-e-e but L-i. Lotus Li.

    She was Chinese, a fact Vance Farr had either neglected to tell his wife or deliberately omitted. Ben wondered which. Overlooked, he decided. Farr wasn't the sort of man who would risk embarrassing a girl to play games with his wife. Besides, the Farr family was cosmopolitan beyond the American norm.

    Valerie exhibited that quality almost instantly. After a sub-audible gasp, her face broke into a smile and she actually went up out of the recessed area to greet the girl.
    "You're Miss Li! How perfectly charming, my dear! We're delighted to have you--though we're also a bit disappointed! Did you know your father and my husband won't be here for dinner. Not till late, in fact."

    Miss Li was bowing slightly. She took Valerie's hand. "Yes, I know," she said. "I have a phone in my car. I talked to Daddy--oh, a half hour ago--while I was stuck waiting for the police to clear up a wreck on the Turnpike. I do hope I'm not delaying you?"

    "Of course not."

    Introductions. Faith was first. She said to Miss Li, frankly, "I think the Chinese are the most lovely women on earth--and you are one of the loveliest I ever saw!"

    At dinner they were to find her first name was Lotus but everybody at Radcliffe, from which she had just graduated, called her "Lodi." Now, she flushed faintly at Faith's words and then, realizing they were frank and intended, she smiled with a vividness that Ben found breath-taking.

    "Thank you," said the Chinese girl, and, looking straight at Faith, "You can easily afford to say such a thing!" Whereupon they both laughed.

    Everybody did.

    Lodi Li soon departed to change for dinner. Faith and her mother waited till the footfalls died on distant flagstones and then both said, though differently, "Well!"

    Ben supposed Mrs. Farr meant, "What a surprise!" and Faith, "What a beauty!" In any event, he said, "Exactly." And that seemed the right word, for Valerie smiled at him and Faith, after an appraising glance, gave him a sudden, almost undetectable wink. . . .

    Ben sat on a terrace after dinner with Lodi and Faith, in sling chairs, beside coffee cups on low tables. Valerie had made her apologies at the end of the meal and vanished, not quite steadily but unaided.

    The last sun fell on