Gandinot announced
the arrival of another unfortunate.
And then, shaking her like an electric shock, came a voice that she
knew--the pleasant voice of Mr Vince.
The dialogues that took place on the other side of the screen were
often protracted and always sordid, but none had seemed to Ruth so
interminable, so hideously sordid, as this one.
Round and round its miserable centre--a silver cigarette-case--the
dreary argument circled. The young man pleaded; M. Gandinot, adamant in
his official role, was immovable.
Ruth could bear it no longer. She pressed her hands over her burning
ears, and the voices ceased to trouble her.
And with the silence came thought, and a blaze of understanding that
flashed upon her and made all things clear. She understood now why she
had closed her ears.
Poverty is an acid which reacts differently on differing natures. It
had reduced Mr Eugene Warden's self-respect to a minimum. Ruth's it had
reared up to an abnormal growth. Her pride had become a weed that ran
riot in her soul, darkening it and choking finer emotions. Perhaps it
was her father's naive stratagems for the enmeshing of a wealthy
husband that had produced in her at last a morbid antipathy to the
idea of playing beggar-maid to any man's King Cophetua. The state of
mind is intelligible.
Pages:
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182