And the dinner in town, where he had seemed to make an excellent
impression, only that Mrs. Breede persisted in behaving as if the body
was still upstairs and she must be brave, brave! And Grandma, the Demon,
confiding to him over her after-dinner cigarette that he was in for it
now, though she hadn't dared tell him so before; but he'd find that out
for himself soon enough if he wasn't very careful about thwarting her.
It made her perfectly furious to be thwarted.
Nor did he fail to note that the stricken mother was distinctly blaming
the Demon for the whole dreadful affair. Her child had been allowed to
associate with a grandmother who had gone radical at an age when most of
her sex simmer in a gentle fireside conservatism and die respectably.
But it was too late now. She could only be brave, brave!
And he was to be there at nine sharp, which was too early, but the
flapper could be sure only after he came that nothing had happened to
him, that he had neither failed in business, been poisoned by some
article of food not on her list, nor diverted by that possible Other One
who seemed always to lurk in the flapper's mental purlieus. She just
perfectly wanted him there an hour too early; all there was about it!
These events had beaten upon him with the unhurried but telling impact
of an ocean tide. Two facts were salient from the mass: whatever he had
done he had done because of Ram-tah; and he was going to Paris, where he
would see the actual tomb of that other outworn shell of his.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252