FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
finement in different ways. Don't you ever have any trouble with your behavior, Aunt Gertrude?" Gertrude laughed. The truth was that she was having considerable trouble with her behavior since Jimmie's arrival two days before. She had thought to spend her two months with Eleanor on Cape Cod helping the child to relate her new environment to her old, while she had the benefit of her native air and the freedom of a rural summer. She also felt that one of their number ought to have a working knowledge of Eleanor's early surroundings and habits. She had meant to put herself and her own concerns entirely aside. If she had a thought for any one but Eleanor she meant it to be for the two old people whose guest she had constituted herself. She explained all this to Jimmie a day or two before her departure, and to her surprise he had suggested that he spend his own two vacation weeks watching the progress of her experiment. Before she was quite sure of the wisdom of allowing him to do so she had given him permission to come. Jimmie was part of her trouble. Her craving for isolation and undiscovered country; her eagerness to escape with her charge to some spot where she would not be subjected to any sort of familiar surveillance, were all a part of an instinct to segregate herself long enough to work out the problem of Jimmie and decide what to do about it. This she realized as soon as he arrived on the spot. She realized further that she had made practically no progress in the matter, for this curly headed young man, bearing no relation to anything that Gertrude had decided a young man should be, was rapidly becoming a serious menace to her peace of mind, and her ideal of a future lived for art alone. She had definitely begun to realize this on the night when Jimmie, in his exuberance at securing his new job, had seized her about the waist and kissed her on the lips. She had thought a good deal about that kiss, which came dangerously near being her first one. She was too clever, too cool and aloof, to have had many tentative love-affairs. Later, as she softened and warmed and gathered grace with the years she was likely to seem more alluring and approachable to the gregarious male. Now she answered her small interlocutor truthfully. "Yes, Eleanor, I do have a whole lot of trouble with my behavior. I'm having trouble with it today, and this evening," she glanced up at the moon, which was seemingly throwing out conscious waves
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Jimmie

 
trouble
 

Eleanor

 

thought

 

behavior

 

Gertrude

 
realized
 
progress
 

realize

 
exuberance

seized

 

securing

 

decided

 

headed

 

bearing

 

relation

 

matter

 

practically

 
arrived
 

future


menace

 

rapidly

 

interlocutor

 

truthfully

 
answered
 

alluring

 
approachable
 

gregarious

 

seemingly

 
throwing

conscious

 

evening

 

glanced

 

clever

 

dangerously

 

gathered

 
warmed
 

softened

 

tentative

 

affairs


kissed

 

undiscovered

 

number

 

summer

 
benefit
 
native
 

freedom

 

working

 
concerns
 

knowledge