eBooks Base 2000

On her left the crowded
houses of the sleeping town, slashed here and there with sharp edged
shadows, receded, growing indistinct among gardens and groves. The
scene, as setting to this single figure, affected him profoundly, taken
in conjunction with that singular cry. He retraced the few steps dividing
him from her.
"Marriage?" she almost wailed, putting out her hands as though to prevent
his approach. "No--no--never in life, Colonel Sahib. You quite dreadfully
misunderstand."
"Do I?" Carteret said, greatly taken aback, while, whether he would
or no, unholy ideas again flitted through his mind maliciously
assailing him.
"It has nothing to do with that sort of loving. It belongs to something
much more beautifully part of oneself--something of one's very, very own,
right from the very beginning."
"Indeed!" he said, sullenly, even roughly, his habitual mansuetude giving
way before this--for so he could not but take it--contemptuous flinging
of his immense tenderness, his patient, unswerving devotion, back in his
face.


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