FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   >>  
ss had said of him, he would be running away. He would be running from the evidences of a moneyless, self-abnegating youth, from the plain surfaces of efficiency and womanliness, not hedged about and enfolded, but pushed to the extremity of its use. He had, however, when he had taken that in from every side, the grace to be ashamed of it. He was ashamed, too, of finding himself at their next meeting involved in a wordless appeal to be helped from his state to some larger grounds. If the girl had but appealed to him he could have done with a fine generosity what he felt was beyond him to invite. He could have married Savilla Dassonville to be kind to her; what he didn't enjoy was putting it on a basis of her being kind to him. Miss Dassonville, however, afforded him no help beyond the negative one of not talking too much and taking perhaps a shade less interest in Venice. They had two quiet days together in which it was evident, whatever Peter settled with himself as to his relation to the girl, it had taken on for Mrs. Merrithew the pointedness known in Bloombury as "attentions." She paid in to the possibilities of the situation the tribute of her absence for long sessions in which, so far as Peter could discover, the situation rather fell to the ground. It began to appear that he had missed as he was doomed with women, the crucial instant, and was to come out of this as of other encounters, empty. And then quite suddenly the girl put out a hand to him. It was along about the end of the afternoon they had come out of the church of Saint George the Greater, which as being most accessible had been left to the latter end of their explorations. Mrs. Merrithew had just sent Giuseppe back for a shawl which she had dropped in the cloister. They sat rocking in the gondola looking toward the fairy arcade of the ducal palace and the pillars of the saints, and suddenly Miss Dassonville spoke to excuse her quietness. "I must look all I can," she said; "we are leaving the day after to-morrow." If she had retired behind Mrs. Merrithew's comfortable breadth in order to deliver her shot the more effectively, she missed seeing how plumply it landed in the midst of Peter's defences and scattered them. "Leaving Venice?" he said. "Leaving me?" It took a moment for that fact, dropping the depth of his indecision, to show him where he stood. "But I thought you understood," he protested, "that I wanted you to stay ... to stay wit
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   >>  



Top keywords:
Dassonville
 

Merrithew

 

situation

 

ashamed

 

suddenly

 
missed
 
Venice
 

running

 
Leaving
 

arcade


rocking

 

gondola

 
dropped
 

cloister

 
Greater
 

afternoon

 
church
 
George
 

explorations

 

Giuseppe


accessible

 

morrow

 

moment

 

scattered

 

defences

 

plumply

 

landed

 

dropping

 

understood

 

protested


wanted

 
thought
 

indecision

 

effectively

 

quietness

 
pillars
 

saints

 
excuse
 

leaving

 
deliver

breadth
 

comfortable

 
encounters
 
retired
 

palace

 

Bloombury

 
larger
 

grounds

 
helped
 

appeal