FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   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   >>   >|  
natures should not be opposed. "I pity Mrs. Chepstow, too," he concluded. "Poor woman!" And in saying that he spoke the truth. But his pity for her was not of the kind that is akin to love. The black coffee Mrs. Chepstow had persuaded Meyer Isaacson to take kept him awake that night. Like some evil potion, it banished sleep and peopled the night with a rushing crowd of thoughts. Presently he did not even try to sleep. He gave himself to the crowd with a sort of half-angry joy. In the afternoon he had been secretly puzzled by Mrs. Chepstow. He had wondered what under-reason she had for seeking an interview with him. Now he surely knew that reason. Unless he was wrong, unless he misunderstood her completely, she had come to make a curiously audacious _coup_. She had seen Nigel Armine, she had read his strange nature rightly; she had divined that in him there was a man who, unlike most men, instinctively loved to go against the stream, who instinctively turned towards that which most men turned from. She had seen in him the born espouser of lost causes. She was a lost cause. Armine was her opportunity. Armine had talked to her four days ago of Meyer Isaacson. The Doctor guessed how, knowing the generous enthusiasm of his friend. And she, a clever woman, made distrustful by misfortune, had come to Cleveland Square, led by feminine instinct, to spy out this land of which she had heard so much. The Doctor's sensation of being examined, while he sat with Mrs. Chepstow in his consulting-room, had been well-founded. The patient had been reading the Doctor, swiftly, accurately. And she had acted promptly upon the knowledge of him so rapidly acquired. She had "given herself away" to him; she had shown herself to him as she was. Why? To shut his mouth in the future. The revelation, such as it was, had been made to him as a physician, under the guise of described symptoms. She had told him the exact truth of herself in his consulting-room, in order that he might not tell others--tell Nigel Armine--what that truth was. Her complete reliance upon her own capacity for reading character surprised and almost delighted the Doctor. For there was something within him which loved strength and audacity, which could appreciate them artistically at their full value. She had given a further and a fuller illustration of her audacity that evening in the restaurant. Now, in the night, he could see her white face, the look in her
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Armine

 

Doctor

 

Chepstow

 
reason
 
turned
 

consulting

 
reading
 

audacity

 

instinctively

 

Isaacson


knowledge
 

rapidly

 

acquired

 

promptly

 

swiftly

 
accurately
 

future

 

opposed

 

concluded

 
patient

instinct

 
sensation
 

founded

 

examined

 

revelation

 

natures

 

restaurant

 
strength
 

fuller

 

illustration


artistically

 

delighted

 

symptoms

 

physician

 

feminine

 

capacity

 

character

 

surprised

 

reliance

 

complete


evening

 

Cleveland

 

Unless

 

misunderstood

 

surely

 

interview

 
completely
 

curiously

 

audacious

 

seeking