Stone.
The little model dipped her pen in ink. Her eyes crept towards the door,
where Hilary was still standing with the same expression on his face. He
avoided her eyes, and went up to Mr. Stone.
"Must you read to-day, sir?"
Mr. Stone looked at him with anger.
"Why not?" he said.
"You are hardly strong enough."
Mr. Stone raised his manuscript.
"We are three days behind;" and very slowly he began dictating:
"'Bar-ba-rous ha-bits in those days, such as the custom known as
War---'" His voice died away; it was apparent that his elbows, leaning
on the desk, alone prevented his collapse.
Hilary moved the chair, and, taking him beneath the arms, lowered him
gently into it.
Noticing that he was seated, Mr. Stone raised his manuscript and read
on: "'---were pursued regardless of fraternity. It was as though a herd
of horn-ed cattle driven through green pastures to that Gate, where they
must meet with certain dissolution, had set about to prematurely
gore and disembowel each other, out of a passionate devotion to those
individual shapes which they were so soon to lose. So men--tribe against
tribe, and country against country--glared across the valleys with their
ensanguined eyes; they could not see the moonlit wings, or feel the
embalming airs of brotherhood.'"
Slower and slower came his sentences, and as the last word died away he
was heard to be asleep, breathing through a tiny hole left beneath the
eave of his moustache.
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