ONE:For his part he had known so many of those evenings, when the dinner-party went away precisely at half-past ten, and he was left to hear long comments by his wife on the soup and the{142} beef and the grouse and the pudding and the savoury, and what Dr Inglis said, and what Mrs Fyson thought. He hoped, when he first came back, after seeing Norah fade into the snow-storm, that he was to be regaled with such reminiscences, but hoped rather against hope. No reminiscences came to his aid, and he began to be aware, from the ice-bound conditions, that he must expect something far less jovial and trivial. But he had no accusing conscience, and if she chose to read her evening paper upside down in silence, he could at least read the morning paper the right way up. Then, as he would not give her a lead, make some remark, that is to say, to which she could take exception, she had to begin.
TWO:A sudden idiotic courage possessed her; she proposed to put things to the touch. The flickering firelight and her sense of convalescence inspired her. He had called her ��Helper,�� he had said a thousand things behind which meaning might lurk. It was her business, like that of every sensible girl who wants to be married, to show him that his shy priest-like advances met a slightly less shy welcome. A wave of calculating fatuousness combed over her.Then followed the usual acclamation, and it{248} was sweet to the donor��s ears. But sweeter than it all to him was the moment when, as the guests sat down again and he rose to reply, he looked across at the table near the wall, and caught Norah��s eye. Just perceptibly she shook her head at him as if to reproach him with his ingeniousness the day before, but all her face was alight. He had never met so radiant an encounter from her....
FORE:[Pg 32]A JAPANESE IMPERIAL BARGE. A JAPANESE IMPERIAL BARGE.
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