Seven
shillings a week, I believe you said. We will take it for a fortnight,
at all events."
The first glimmer of a smile appeared on the landlady's grim face, with
its hungry eyes, sweetened by patience.
"When would she be coming in?" she asked.
"When do you think, Hilary?"
"I don't know," muttered Hilary. "The sooner the better--if it must be.
To-morrow, or the day after."
And with one look at the bed, covered by a piece of cheap red-and-yellow
tasselled tapestry, he went out into the street. The shower was over,
but the house faced north, and no sun was shining on it.
CHAPTER XXII
HILARY PUTS AN END TO IT
Like flies caught among the impalpable and smoky threads of cobwebs,
so men struggle in the webs of their own natures, giving here a
start, there a pitiful small jerking, long sustained, and failing
into stillness. Enmeshed they were born, enmeshed they die, fighting
according to their strength to the end; to fight in the hope of freedom,
their joy; to die, not knowing they are beaten, their reward. Nothing,
too, is more to be remarked than the manner in which Life devises for
each man the particular dilemmas most suited to his nature; that which
to the man of gross, decided, or fanatic turn of mind appears a simple
sum, to the man of delicate and speculative temper seems to have no
answer.
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