FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168  
169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   >>  
afraid you never took to her!" he said lightly. "She never took to me!" "I wonder if that was my fault? She suspected that I had called you in to help me to keep her in order!" "What was it brought her to reason--so suddenly?" said Cynthia, seeking light at last on a problem that had long puzzled her. "Two things, I imagine. First that she was the better man of us all, that day of the Dansworth riot. She could drive my big car, and none of the rest of us could! That seemed to put her right with us all. And secondly--the reports of that abominable trial. She told me so. I only hope she didn't read much of it!" They had just passed the corner of the house, and come out on the sloping lawn of Beechmark, with the lake, and the wood beyond it. All that had happened behind that dark screen of yew, on the distant edge of the water, came rushing back on Philip's imagination, so that he fell silent. Cynthia on her side was thinking of the moment when she came down to the edge of the lake to carry off Geoffrey French, and saw Buntingford and Helena push off into the puckish rays of the searchlight. She tasted again the jealous bitterness of it--and the sense of defeat by something beyond her fighting--the arrogance of Helena's young beauty. Philip was not in love with Helena; that she now knew. So far she, Cynthia, had marvellously escaped the many chances that might have undone her. But if Helena came back? Meanwhile there were some uneasy thoughts at the back of Philip's mind; and some touching and tender recollections which he kept sacred to himself. Helena's confession and penitence--there, on that still water--how pretty they were, how gracious! Nor could he ever forget her sweetness, her pity on that first tragic evening. Geoffrey's alarms were absurd. Yet when he thought of merely reproducing the situation as it had existed before the night of the ball, something made him hesitate. And besides, how could he reproduce it? All his real mind was now absorbed in this overwhelming problem of his son; of the helpless, appealing creature to whose aid the whole energies of his nature had been summoned. He walked back some way with Cynthia, talking of the boy, with an intensity of hope that frightened her. "Don't, or don't be too certain--yet!" she pleaded. "We have only just seen the first sign--the first flicker. If it were all to vanish again!" "Could I bear it?" he said, under his breath--"Could I?" "Anyway
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168  
169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   >>  



Top keywords:
Helena
 

Cynthia

 

Philip

 

Geoffrey

 

problem

 
alarms
 
thought
 

absurd

 
evening
 

sweetness


tragic

 

thoughts

 
touching
 

tender

 
recollections
 

uneasy

 
Meanwhile
 
chances
 

undone

 

gracious


pretty

 

sacred

 

confession

 

penitence

 

forget

 

absorbed

 

frightened

 

intensity

 

walked

 

talking


vanish

 
breath
 

Anyway

 

flicker

 

pleaded

 
summoned
 

hesitate

 
reproduce
 

situation

 
existed

energies
 

nature

 
creature
 
overwhelming
 

helpless

 

appealing

 
reproducing
 

Buntingford

 
Dansworth
 

reports