Bella Donna - A Novel by Robert Smythe Hichens
page 32 of 765 (04%)
page 32 of 765 (04%)
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"At any rate, I forget to speak of it," he said, rather curtly. "Good-bye," she rejoined. She left him with a strange sensation, of the hopelessness that comes from greed and acute worldliness, uncombined with any, even subconscious, conception of other possibilities than purely material ones. What could such a woman have to look forward to at this period of her life? Doctor Isaacson was thinking about this now. He remained always perfectly motionless in his arm-chair, but he had abandoned the attempt to discipline his mind. He knew that to-day his brain would not repose with his limbs, and he no longer desired his usual rest-cure. He preferred to think--about Mrs. Chepstow. She had made upon him a powerful impression. He recalled the look in her eyes when she had said that she was thirty-eight, a look that had seemed to command him to believe her. He had not believed her, yet he had no idea what her real age was. Only he knew that it was not thirty-eight. How determined she was not to suffer, to get through life--her one life, as she thought it--without distress! And she was suffering. He divined why. That was not difficult. She was "in low water." The tides of pleasure were failing. And she had nothing to cling to, clever woman though she was. Why did he think her clever? |
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