"It is very
tragic," she said, "but much better--you know it is better. He
belonged to the cumberers of the earth. Yes, so much better; and this
way, too!"
In the darkness her hand sought his. Adrian took it, but in his
heart was the same choked feeling, the same knowledge that something
was gone that could not be found again, that, as a little boy, he had
had when they sold, at his father's death, the country place where
he had spent his summers. Often he had lain awake at night, restless
with the memory of heliotrope, and phlox, and mignonette, and
afternoons quiet except for the sound of bees.
"CONTACT!"
BY FRANCES NOYES HART[8]
[Footnote 8: Frances Newbold Noyes, in _Pictorial Review_ for
December, 1920.]
The first time she heard it was in the silk-hung and flower-scented
peace of the little drawing-room in Curzon Street. His sister Rosemary
had wanted to come up to London to get some clothes--Victory clothes
they called them in those first joyous months after the armistice,
and decked their bodies in scarlet and silver, even when their poor
hearts went in black--and Janet had been urged to leave her own drab
boarding-house room to stay with the forlorn small butterfly. They had
struggled through dinner somehow, and Janet had finished her coffee
and turned the great chair so that she could watch the dancing fire
(it was cool for May), her cloudy brown head tilted back against the
rose-red cushion, shadowy eyes half closed, idle hands linked across
her knees.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64