s overwhelming onslaught of wealth
pressed from the blood and bones of the youth of the world. She smiled
and lay thinking of her imaginary people, who lived exemplary and
unimportant lives in an England which no longer existed. And near her,
hovering, shining like a creature from another world, clad miraculously
in robes of extraordinary brilliance, could be seen Evanthia Solaris,
the companion of her hours. Often it was she who shot away along the
great corniche road in those cars of speed and beauty, their silver
fittings and glossy panels humming past like some vast and costly
insect. She it was who lay in a silken hammock in the great houseboat by
the breakwater, and listened to the sweet strains from the disc
concealed in a cabinet shaped like a huge bronze shell. "_Je deteste les
hommes_," she murmured to herself as she wandered through the orange
groves to the curved marble seats on the shore.

Hearing these words as she passed, the young Jew, working among the
roses, would tremble and recall with an expression of horror their
experiences in Europe. Often, when in their destitution she had taken
him by the hair and hissed them in his affrighted ear, and he would
utter an almost inaudible moan of "Oh, Madama!" For he loved her. He was
the victim of a passion like a thin, pure, agitated flame burning amid
conflagrations. He would have expired in ecstasy beneath her hand, for
it would have needed more courage to speak than to die. And now he was
in paradise tending the roses and suffering exquisite agonies as she
passed, her beautiful lips muttering, "_Je deteste les hommes!_" As
perhaps she did; yet she would sometimes look suddenly out across the
waves with smouldering amber eyes and parted lips, as though she
expected to behold once more the figure of a man coming up out of the
sea, to offer again the unregarded sacrifices of fidelity and love.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Command, by William McFee

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMMAND ***

***** This file should be named 32114.txt or 32114.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/1/1/32114/

Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print