The palms of the hands had the lingering scent of some
stuff that he had bought on the Boulevard...He looked up and
saw a letter falling over his shoulder to his knee...
"Did I disturb you? I'm so sorry! They gave me this just now
when I came in."
The letter, before he could catch it, had slipped between
his knees to the floor. It lay there, address upward, at
his feet, and while he sat staring down at the strong
slender characters on the blue-gray envelope an arm reached
out from behind to pick it up.
"Oh, don't--DON'T" broke from him, and he bent over and
caught the arm. The face above it was close to his.
"Don't what?"
----"take the trouble," he stammered.
He dropped the arm and stooped down. His grasp closed over
the letter, he fingered its thickness and weight and
calculated the number of sheets it must contain.
Suddenly he felt the pressure of the hand on his shoulder,
and became aware that the face was still leaning over him,
and that in a moment he would have to look up and kiss it...
He bent forward first and threw the unopened letter into the
middle of the fire.
BOOK II
IX
The light of the October afternoon lay on an old high-roofed
house which enclosed in its long expanse of brick and
yellowish stone the breadth of a grassy court filled with
the shadow and sound of limes.
From the escutcheoned piers at the entrance of the court a
level drive, also shaded by limes, extended to a white-
barred gate beyond which an equally level avenue of grass,
cut through a wood, dwindled to a blue-green blur against a
sky banked with still white slopes of cloud.
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