Septimus by William John Locke
page 33 of 344 (09%)
page 33 of 344 (09%)
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cathedral. When she went to bed, she slept the sound sleep of youth.
Septimus, after dismissing the cab, wandered in his vague way over to the Café de Paris, instinct suggesting his belated breakfast, which, like his existence, Zora had forgotten. The waiter came. "_Monsieur désire?_" "Absinthe," murmured Septimus absent-mindedly, "and--er--poached eggs--and anything--a raspberry ice." The waiter gazed at him in stupefaction; but nothing being too astounding in Monte Carlo, he wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead and executed the order. The unholy meal being over, Septimus drifted into the square and spent most of the night on a bench gazing at the Hôtel de Paris and wondering which were her windows. When she mentioned casually, a day or two later, that her windows looked the other way over the sea, he felt that Destiny had fooled him once more; but for the time being he found a gentle happiness in his speculation. Chilled to the bone, at last, he sought his hotel bedroom and smoked a pipe, meditative, with his hat on until the morning. Then he went to bed. Two mornings afterwards Zora came upon him on the Casino terrace. He sprawled idly on a bench between a fat German and his fat wife, who were talking across him. His straw hat was tilted over his eyes and his legs were crossed. In spite of the conversation (and a middle-class German does not whisper when he talks to his wife), and the going and coming of the crowd--in spite of the sunshine and the blue air, he slumbered peacefully. |
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