I see that she has been
crying quietly, poor lonely little soul. I lift her off her feet and
kiss her, and stammer out my sorrow at losing her, and she is gone. Next
morning the little maid brought me an envelope from the lady, who left
by the first train. It held a little grey glove; that is why I carry it
always, and why I haunt the inn and never leave it for longer than a
week; why I sit and dream in the old chair that has a ghost of her
presence always; dream of the spring to come with the May-fly on the
wing, and the young summer when midges dance, and the trout are growing
fastidious; when she will come to me across the meadow grass, through
the silver haze, as she did before; come with her grey eyes shining to
exchange herself for her little grey glove.
THE WOMAN BEATER
By Israel Zangwill
(_The Grey Wig/Stories and Novelettes_, New York: The Macmillan Company,
1903)
I
She came 'to meet John Lefolle', but John Lefolle did not know he was
to meet Winifred Glamorys. He did not even know he was himself the
meeting-point of all the brilliant and beautiful persons, assembled in
the publisher's Saturday Salon, for although a youthful minor poet, he
was modest and lovable.
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