It was
as though those lips were saying: "Yes, but we are not quite animals!"
Hilary got up and sat down on his bed. Blanca stayed in the chair,
looking straight before her, utterly inert, her head thrown back, her
white throat gleaming, on her lips and in her eyes that flickering
smile. Not a word more, nor a look, passed between them.
Then rising, without noise, she passed behind him and went out.
Hilary had a feeling in his mouth as though he had been chewing ashes.
And a phrase--as phrases sometimes fill the spirit of a man without
rhyme or reason--kept forming on his lips: "The house of harmony!"
Presently he went to her door, and stood there listening. He could hear
no sound whatever. If she had been crying if she had been laughing--it
would have been better than this silence. He put his hands up to his
ears and ran down-stairs.
CHAPTER XIII
SOUND IN THE NIGHT
He passed his study door, and halted at Mr. Stone's; the thought of
the old man, so steady and absorbed in the face of all external things,
refreshed him.
Still in his brown woollen gown, Mr. Stone was sitting with his eyes
fixed on something in the corner, whence a little perfumed steam was
rising.
"Shut the door," he said; "I am making cocoa; will you have a cup?"
"Am I disturbing you?" asked Hilary.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131