Lendle

"He came—it would be many days ago. He is going to take me back to Italy. Why do you say he is generous? Was he not his friend?"
"Do you mean your father's? Well, but we don't always give a lot of money to the daughters of our friends—not in this country, anyway! You ought to think yourself very lucky, Maryska!"
She did not understand that.
"He is very old," she said. "Once I thought that he looked at me as other men do—as you do sometimes, Harry! It was when I first saw him at Ragusa. Then it became different! He took us to Ranovica, and I saw dreadful things. Jesus Christ, what things I saw! Oh! if you had known—but I try to forget them now. He would wish that—he never let me speak of yesterday."
Her eyes were very wide open and shining; the expressive face spoke of woe most piteous. And this memory of suffering affected the boy also, destitute of sentiment as he was in a general way. He stooped suddenly and kissed her warm lips.
"Never mind, Gipsy dear! You've got some jolly good friends, and old Papa Faber will see you through. I know he means to, for Gabrielle told me so. Just think of it!; one of the richest men in the world your godfather! Aren't you in luck?"
She smiled. Money, by hook or by crook, had been Louis de Paleologue's gospel; how could she forget it?
"He's in love with Gabrielle," she said, making no shadow of a resistance to his kisses, but rather lifting her lips to his, "I know it, and so does she! Why aren't you angry with them, Harry—don't you care? Doesn't it make any difference to you?"
"Oh," he said with just a touch of hardness in his voice, "I'm not going to be jealous of an old bounder like that. He's old enough to be her father. Let's go and spend some of your money, Maryska. Does the doctor say you may go?"
She made a wry grimace.
"He used to say doctors were——But no, I mustn't tell you. I hate them! How can they know what's inside us and why we feel it? Of course I shall go! Why are you such a fool?"
He gave way with a shrug, and she went up to get her furs. It was a clear day with little wind and a fine red sun. The frost had not broken, and these two went down toward a city over which loomed the menace of a peril terrible beyond imagination. But of this the suburbs said nothing. Here and there a baker would have a flaring bill in his window; there were advertisements and appeals upon some of the hoardings, but few stopped to read them. Such idlers as gathered at the street corners had long exhausted the only topic of conversation and smoked in silence when they did not beg in companies. "Bread, for the love of God!" was the chant of gangs of impostors whose corduroys were no ornament to streets of red brick. 'Buses, trams and taxis seemed quite unaware of a crisis. The newspapers alone were hysterical. They were covered with flaring black headlines.






Swords Reluctant : War and The Woman, A Man of Destiny, Between Heaven and Earth, A Strange Voyage, Goodwill Toward Men, Of Love but not of Marriage, Surrender and Afterwards