A Great Success by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 52 of 125 (41%)
page 52 of 125 (41%)
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The girl rose from her chair again and bowed. Then Doris saw that she
had a charming tired face, beautiful eyes on which she had just placed spectacles, and soft brown hair framing her thin cheeks. "A novelty since you were here," whispered Bentley in Doris's ear. "She's an accountant--capital girl! Since these Liberal budgets came along, I can't keep my own accounts, or send in my own income-tax returns--dash them! So she does the whole business for me--pays everything--sees to everything--comes once a week. We shall all be run by the women soon!" * * * * * The studio had grown very quiet. Through some glass doors open to the garden came in little wandering winds which played with some loose papers on the floor, and blew Doris's hair about her eyes as she stooped over her easel, absorbed in her drawing. Apparently absorbed: her subliminal mind, at least, was far away, wandering on a craggy Scotch moor. A lady on a Scotch pony--she understood that Lady Dunstable often rode with the shooters--and a tall man walking beside her, carrying, not a gun, but a walking stick:--that was the vision in the crystal. Arthur was too bad a shot to be tolerated in the Dunstable circle; had indeed wisely announced from the beginning that he was not to be included among the guns. All the more time for conversation, the give and take of wits, the pleasures of the intellectual tilting-ground; the whole watered by good wine, seasoned with the best of cooking, and lapped in the general ease of a house where nobody ever thought of such a vulgar thing as money except to spend it. Doris had in general a severe mind as to the rich and aristocratic |
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