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Arms and the Woman by Harold MacGrath
page 41 of 302 (13%)

"In either case, yours or mine."

"In either case. Go on with your story; there's nothing more to add to
mine."

Some time passed, and nothing but the breathing of the pipes was heard.
Now and then I would poke away at the ashes in my pipe bowl, and Dan
would do the same.

"Have you a picture of her?" I asked, reaching for some fresh tobacco.

"No; I am afraid to keep one."

To me this was a new phase in the matter of grand passions.

"A likeness which never changes its expression means nothing to me," he
explained. "Her face in all its moods is graven in my mind; I have but
to shut my eyes, and she stands before me in all her loveliness. Do
you know why I wanted this vacation? Rest?" His shoulders went up and
his lips closed tighter. "My son, I want no rest. It is rest which is
killing me. I am going across. I am going to see her again, if only
from the curb as she rolls past in her carriage, looking at me but not
recognizing me, telling her footman to brush me aside should I attempt
to speak to her. Yet I would suffer this humiliation to see that
glorious face once more, to hear again that voice, though it were keyed
to scorn. I am a fool, Jack. What! have I gone all these years
free-heart to love a chimera in the end? Verily I am an ass. She is a
Princess; she has riches; she has a principality; she is the ward of a
King. What has she to do with such as I? Three months in the year she
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