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Fennel and Rue by William Dean Howells
page 77 of 140 (55%)

"Have you got a bad conscience?" she asked, letting her eyes rest on his.

"Yes. I can't make my conduct square with my ideal of conduct."

"I know what that is!" she sighed. "Do you expect to be punished for
it?"

"I expect to be got even with."

"Yes, one is. I've noticed that myself. But I didn't suppose that
actors--Oh, I forgot! I beg your pardon again, Mr. Verrian.
Oh--Goodnight!" She faced him evanescently in going out, with the woman
after her, but, whether she did so more in fear or more in defiance, she
left him standing motionless in his doubt, and she did nothing to solve
his doubt when she came quickly back alone, before he was aware of having
moved, to say, "Mr. Verrian, I want to--I have to--tell you that
--I didn't think you were the actor." Then she was finally gone, and
Verrian had nothing for it but to go up to his room with the book he
found he had in his hand and must have had there all the time.

If he had read it, the book would not have eased him off to sleep, but he
did not even try, to read it. He had no wish to sleep. The waking dream
in which he lost himself was more interesting than any vision of slumber
could have been, and he had no desire to end it. In that he could still
be talking with the girl whose mystery appealed to him so pleasingly.
It was none the less pleasing because, at what might be called her first
blushes, she did not strike him as altogether ingenuous, but only able to
discipline herself into a final sincerity from a consciousness which had
been taught wisdom by experience.
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