How much learning, thought I, bought
with the heart's-blood, how many million hours of fierce
intellectual struggle appeal to mankind nowadays but as an odour,
an odour of decay, in the nostrils of here and there a casual
student. I thought this, and my eye caught, repeated many times,
the name of the Frangipani, once lords of Segna. As men, their
achievements are wiped out of commonly remembered history; but
their name is distilled into a sensuous perfume which perchance
may be found in the penny scent fountains of to-day. I was
smiling over this quaint olfactory coincidence, and wondering
whether any human being alive at that moment had ever read the
Sieur Houssaie's book, when a tug at my arm, such as a neglected
terrier gives with his paw, brought me back to the workaday
world. I turned sharply and met a pair of melting, brown,
piteous, imploring dog's eyes, belonging not to a terrier, but to
the disregarded female in black.
"Will you please, sir, to tell me what I must do."
I stared. She was not in the least like what my half-conscious
glance at the female in black had taken her to be.
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