E. R. Punshon

“ With a complete change of manner, with his old smile on his lips and his eyes as dark and unsmiling as ever, he said:—
“Pretty girl, Ella—isn't she?”
“She is more than pretty, she is beautiful,” Dunn answered with an emphasis that made Deede Dawson look at him sharply.
“Think so?” he said, and gave his peculiar laugh that had so little mirth in it. “Well, you're right, she is. He'll be a lucky man that gets her—and she's to be had, you know. But I'll tell you one thing, it won't be John Clive.” ”

“ Deede Dawson interrupted with a quick jerk of his head.
“Never mind what she means, it'll be what I mean,” he declared. “I am boss; and what's more, she knows it. I believe in a man being master in his own family. Don't you?”
“If he can be,” retorted Dunn. “But still, a girl naturally—”
“Naturally nothing,” Deede Dawson interrupted again. “I tell you what I want for her, a man I can trust—trust—that's the great thing. Some one I can trust.”
He nodded at Dunn as he said this and then walked off, and Dunn felt very puzzled as he, too, turned away. ”

“ This gift or power of Dunn's he had acquired in far-off lands, where life may easily depend on the snapping of a twig or the right interpretation of a trampled grass-blade, and he was using it now, almost unconsciously, so as to make his presence near Ella and Clive as unobtrusive as possible, when his keen eye caught sight of a bush, of which leaves and branches were moving against the wind. ”