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The Lee Shore by Rose Macaulay
page 46 of 329 (13%)
their brotherhood.

For Peter his glance was indulgent. Peter, not being himself a reformer,
or an idealist, or a lover of progress, or even, according to himself, of
liberty, but an acceptor of things as they are and a lover of the good
things of this world, was not particularly interesting to his uncle, of
course; but, being rather an endearing boy, and the son of a beloved
sister, he was loved; and, even had he been a stranger, his position
would have been regarded as more respectable than Urquhart's, since he
had so far failed to secure many good things.

Felicity, a gracious and lovely person of twenty-nine, gave Peter and
Urquhart a smile out of her violet eyes and murmured "Lucy's in the
corner over there," and resumed the conversation she was trying to divide
between Joseph Leslie and a young English professor who was having a
holiday from stirring up revolutions at a Polish university. The division
was not altogether easy, even to a person of Felicity's extraordinary
tact, particularly as they both happened to be in love with her. Felicity
had a great deal of listening to do always, because everyone told her
about themselves, and she always heard them gladly; if she hastened the
end a little sometimes, gently, they never knew it. She, in fact, wanted
to hear about them as much--really as much, though the desire in these
proportions is so rare as to seem incredible--as they wanted to let her
hear. Her wish to hear was a temptation to egotism; those who disliked
egotism in themselves had to fight the temptation, and seldom won.
She did not believe--no one but a fool (and she was not that) could have
believed--all the many things that were told her; the many things that
must always, while pity and the need to be pitied endure, be told to the
pitiful; but she seldom said so. She merely looked at the teller with her
long and lovely violet eyes, that took in so much and gave out such
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