Perhaps, after all, amber was the nearest....
"Peter, ask Miss Rossiter if she will have some more tea...." Oh! What a
fool he is! What an absolute ass!
On the second of these two meetings she had read "Reuben Hallard." She
loved it! She thought it astounding! The most wonderful first novel she had
ever read. How had he been able to make one feel Cornwall so? She had been
once to Cornwall, to Mullion and it had been just like that! Those rocks!
it was like a poem! And then so exciting!
She had not been able to put it down for a single minute. "Mother was
furious with me because there I sat until I don't know how early in the
morning reading it! Oh! Mr. Westcott, how wonderful to write like that !"
Her praise inflamed him like wine. He looked at her with exultation.
"Oh! you feel like that!" he said, drawing a great breath, "I did want you
to like it so!" He was enraptured--the world was heaven! He did not realise
that some young woman at a tea-party the day before had said precisely
these same things and he had said: "Of all the affected idiots!"...
IV
This might all be termed a period of preparation--that period was fixed for
Peter with its sign and seal on a certain evening of spring when an
enormous orange moon was in the sky, scents were in all the Chelsea
gardens, and the Chelsea streets were like glass in the silver luminous
light.
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