She dined out that evening, and in the morning avoided any
interview. When Hilary's luggage was brought down and the cab summoned,
she slipped up to take shelter in her room. Presently the sound of his
footsteps coming along the passage stopped outside her door. He tapped.
She did not answer.
Good-bye would be a mockery! Let him go with the words unsaid! And as
though the thought had found its way through the closed door, she heard
his footsteps recede again. She saw him presently go out to the cab with
his head bent down, saw him stoop and pat Miranda. Hot tears sprang into
her eyes. She heard the cab-wheels roll away.
The heart is like the face of an Eastern woman--warm and glowing, behind
swathe on swathe of fabric. At each fresh touch from the fingers of
Life, some new corner, some hidden curve or angle, comes into view, to
be seen last of all perhaps never to be seen by the one who owns them.
When the cab had driven away there came into Bianca's heart a sense of
the irreparable, and, mysteriously entwined with that arid ache, a sort
of bitter pity: What would happen to this wretched girl now that he was
gone? Would she go completely to the bad--till she became one of those
poor creatures like the figure in "The Shadow," who stood beneath
lampposts in the streets? Out of this speculation, which was bitter as
the taste of aloes, there came to her a craving for some palliative,
some sweetness, some expression of that instinct of fellow-feeling deep
in each human breast, however disharmonic.
Pages:
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378