She murmured: You must not shut yourself up too
much.
The days had to be spent somehow; and she was
incurably, disconsolately sociable.
At her little suppers she surprised us with
exquisite flowers and novel delicacies. For those scruples I only honour you the
more. Had some obscure inheritance of religious feeling awaked in her? I was not
wholly unprepared for my mothers comment.
He cleared his throat before the next
question.
He finally induced his features to break again into
a persuasive smile. At last she could talk of Charles, she could confess her sin,
she could be absolved of it. But now, as soon as I laid eyes on her, I understood.
She was aware that he had put forth his last effort.
All her life, henceforth, was a long preparation
for that daily hour of expansion and consolation.
Hubert twirled a self-conscious moustache. He
finally induced his features to break again into a persuasive smile. If you would
sip a little port at luncheon and dinner we should have you looking less like a
ghost.
You spare no pains in degrading yourself in my
eyes.
But there was nothing in her to keep her at that
height. The reflection evidently occurred to him almost as soon as it did to
her.
Henry Prest restored his handkerchief to his
pocket. The difference of atmosphere is felt on the very threshold. Thus provided
and led, one day she went to him. Winters eloquence as any grown-up member of his
flock. After his death I thought: Therell be his books.
She was aware that he had put forth his last
effort. But she knew that she had found what she wanted.
Then, apparently reassured, he half-murmured his
only French phrase: La joie fait peur. She drew away her hand, but not unkindly. The
blood rushed to my forehead: my heart was in my throat. I bent bewildered over the
depths of her plight.
Mants sympathy seemed more cruel than her cruelty.
No one reproved coarseness of language in women more than Henry Prest; one of Mrs.
Its my fault, perhaps; I think I knew better how to draw out my old friends. She
could accompany one on those flights too? But there was nothing in her to keep her
at that height. She murmured: You must not shut yourself up too much.
He moistened his lips again, and tapped them with
his handkerchief. She seized on the word as if she had been waiting for her cue. But
something in her look must have benumbed him. It was so ostensibly a solid building,
and not a nomads tent. She sat as motionless as if their coils were about her, till
slowly his tentative grasp relaxed.