Read "The Wicked Marquis" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The Marquis, if he had been a keen physiognomist, might perhaps have read all that he had come to London to know in Marcia's expression as he made his unexpected entrance into her sitting room on the following day. She was seated at her desk, with a great pile of red roses on one side of her, and a secretary, to whom she was dictating, on the other. She swung round in her chair and for a moment was speechless. She looked at her visitor incredulously, a little helplessly, with some traces of an emotion which puzzled him. Her greeting, however, was hearty enough. She sprang to her feet and held out both her hands.
"My dear man, how unlike you! Really, I think that I like surprises. Give me both your hands -- so! Let me look at you."