AI Classic Books

80978.

80979.

80980.

80981.

80982.

What things one did when one was idle. This resurrection of Frederick, or rather this attempt to resurrect him, what was it but the result of having nothing whatever to do? She wished she had never come away on a holiday. What did she want with holidays? Work was her salvation; work was the only thing that protected one, that kept one steady and one’s values true. At home in Hampstead, absorbed and busy, she had managed to get over Frederick, thinking of him latterly only with the gentle melancholy with which one thinks of some one once loved but long since dead; and now this place, idleness in this soft place, had thrown her back to the wretched state she had climbed so carefully out of years ago. Why, if Frederick did come she would only bore him. Hadn’t she seen in a flash quite soon after getting to San Salvatore that that was really what kept him away from her? And why should she suppose that now, after such a long estrangement, she would be able not to bore him, be able to do anything but stand before him like a tongue-tied idiot, with all the fingers of her spirit turned into thumbs? Besides, what a hopeless position, to have as it were to beseech: Please wait a little—please don’t be impatient—I think perhaps I shan’t be a bore presently.

80983.

80984.

80985.

80986.

80987.

80988.

80989.

80990.

80991.

80992.

80993.

80994.

80995.

80996.

80997.

80998.

80999.

81000.

81001.

81002.

81003.

81004.

81005.

81006.

81007.

81008.

81009.

81010.

81011.

81012.

81013.

81014.

81015.

81016.

81017.

81018.

81019.

81020.

81021.

81022.

81023.

81024.

81025.

81026.

81027.

81028.

81029.

81030.

81031.

81032.

81033.

81034.

81035.

81036.

81037.

81038.

81039.

81040.

81041.

81042.

81043.

81044.

81045.

81046.

81047.

81048.

81049.

81050.

81051.

81052.

81053.

81054.

81055.

Thomas Briggs was at that very moment coming. He was jogging along the road between Mezzago and Castagneto in a fly, sincerely hoping that the dark-eyed lady would grasp that all he wanted was to see her, and not at all to see if his house were still there. He felt that an owner of delicacy did not intrude on a tenant. But—he had been thinking so much of her since that day. Rose Arbuthnot. Such a pretty name. And such a pretty creature—mild, milky, mothery in the best sense; the best sense being that she wasn’t his mother and couldn’t have been if she had tried, for parents were the only things impossible to have younger than oneself. Also, he was passing so near. It seemed absurd not just to look in and see if she were comfortable. He longed to see her in his house. He longed to see it as her background, to see her sitting in his chairs, drinking out of his cups, using all his things. Did she put the big crimson brocade cushion in the drawing-room behind her little dark head? Her hair and the whiteness of her skin would look lovely against it. Had she seen the portrait of herself on the stairs? He wondered if she liked it. He would explain it to her. If she didn’t paint, and she had said nothing to suggest it, she wouldn’t perhaps notice how exactly the moulding of the eyebrows and the slight hollow of the cheek—

81056.

81057.

81058.

81059.

81060.

81061.

81062.

81063.

81064.

81065.

81066.

81067.

81068.

81069.

81070.

81071.

81072.

81073.

81074.

81075.

81076.

81077.

81078.

81079.

81080.

81081.

81082.

81083.

81084.

81085.

81086.

81087.

81088.

81089.

81090.

81091.

81092.

81093.

81094.

81095.

81096.

81097.

81098.

81099.

81100.

81101.

81102.

81103.

81104.

81105.

81106.

81107.

81108.

81109.

81110.

81111.

81112.

81113.

81114.

81115.

81116.

81117.

81118.

81119.

81120.

81121.

81122.

81123.

81124.

81125.

81126.