Gora was deeply disappointed that she had received no warning of his call,
for she possessed an extremely becoming and richly embroidered silk Chinese
costume, as red as the flames that had devoured Chinatown a few days after
she had bought it at a bankrupt sale. She had put it on every afternoon for
a week, hoping and expecting that he would call; and now that she had on
her second-best tailored suit, and a darned if immaculate shirtwaist,
he had chosen to turn, up!...But at least the lapels of the jacket had
recently been faced with red, and it curved closely over her beautiful
bust. Moreover, she had just finished rearranging the masses of her rich
brown hair when the bell rang.
And she had him for a time, perhaps for an hour! She set out the tea things
as an intimation of the refreshment he would get at the proper time....
She too had suffered during this past interminable fortnight, but Gora was
far more mature than the young Englishman, upon whom life until the last
few weeks had smiled so persistently. She was too complex, she had suffered
in too many ways, from too many causes, not all of them elevating, to be
capable upon so short a notice, even after a night of unique companionship,
of such whole-souled agony and despair. In her imagination, her sense of
drama, her vanity, in the fading of vague dazzling hopes of a future to
which he held the key, and perhaps a little in her stormy heart, she had
felt a degree of harsh disappointment, but she had already half-recovered;
and as she sat looking at his ravaged face she wondered that the death of a
sister, no matter how harrowing the conditions, could make such a wreck of
any man.
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