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The Three Black Pennys - A Novel by Joseph Hergesheimer
page 125 of 314 (39%)
Yet the need, the longing forward, so newly come into his consciousness,
persisted, grew--it had become the predominate design of his weaving.
Through this he recognized a reassertion of his pride, the rigid pride
of a black Penny, which, in the years immediately past, had been
overwhelmed by a temporary inner confusion. Beyond forty men returned to
their inheritance, their blood; this fact echoed vaguely among his
memories of things heard; and he felt in himself its measure of truth.
His distaste for a largely muddled, pandering society, for men huddled,
he thought, like domestic animals, returned in choking waves. In the
maculate atmosphere of flat wine and stale cologne he had a sharp
recurrence of the scent of pines, lifting warmly in sunny space.

He produced a morocco bound note book, a gold pencil; and, with the
latter poised, directed a close interrogation at Essie. Her face flushed
with an ungovernable anger, and she pressed a hand over her labouring
heart. "Get her then; out Fourth Street, Camden; the Reverend Mr.
Needles. But afterwards don't come complaining to me. You ought to have
seen to her; you've got the money, the influence. And you have done
nothing, beyond some stinking dollars ... wouldn't even name her. Eunice
Scofield, a child without--"

All that she had said was absolutely true, just.

"I suppose you'll even think I didn't give her the sums you sent; that
damned Needles has been bleeding me, suspects something." She stopped
from a lack of breath; her darkened face was purplish, in the shadows.
"I haven't been well, either--a fierce pain here, in my heart."

It was the brandy, he told her; she should leave the city, late wine
parties, go back into the country. "Go back," she echoed bitterly.
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