Hilda - A Story of Calcutta by Sara Jeannette Duncan
page 49 of 305 (16%)
page 49 of 305 (16%)
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common palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something
quite different--a mere casual and unprejudiced statement of fact. "Fairly," she said, not without surprise at her own calmness; and there was an instant of silence, during which the commonplace seemed to be dismissed between them. "You made a vivid impression here last year," said Alicia. She felt delightfully terse and to the point. "You mean Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very impressionable. Do you know him well?" Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself on each side of them. Her whole face sounded a retreat, and her eyes were cold--it would have annoyed her to know how cold--with distance. "He is an old friend of my brother's," she said. Hilda had the sensation of coming unexpectedly, through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. She looked attentively at the red heart of her cigarette, crisped over with grey, in its blackened calyx. "Most impressionable," she went on, as if Alicia had not spoken. "As to the rest of the people--bah, you can't rouse Calcutta. It is sunk in its torpid liver, and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you know, the way pancreatic influences can be idealised--made to serve ennobling ends. But Mr. Lindsay is--different." "Yes?" Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, but, in spite of her, the asking note was in the word. |
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