| 181 | 182 | 183 | 184 | 185 |
| 1 | 66 | 132 | 197 | 263 |
|
indescribable levity. That girl would scrape acquaintance with anybody;
she had no reserve, none of the enamel of the lady. She was familiar
with a brute like his landlord; she took an immediate interest (which
she lacked even the delicacy to conceal) in a creature like Jimson! He
could conceive her asking Jimson to have tea with her! And it was for a
girl like this that a man like Gideon--Down, manly heart!
He was interrupted by a sound that sent him whipping behind the door in
a trice. Miss Hazeltine had stepped on board the houseboat. Her sketch
was promising; judging from the stillness, she supposed Jimson not yet
come; and she had decided to seize occasion and complete the work
of art. Down she sat therefore in the bow, produced her block and
water-colours, and was soon singing over (what used to be called) the
ladylike accomplishment. Now and then indeed her song was interrupted,
as she searched in her memory for some of the odious little receipts
by means of which the game is practised--or used to be practised in the
brave days of old; they say the world, and those ornaments of the world,
young ladies, are become more sophisticated now; but Julia had probably
studied under Pitman, and she stood firm in the old ways.
Gideon, meanwhile, stood behind the door, afraid to move, afraid to
breathe, afraid to think of what must follow, racked by confinement and
borne to the ground with tedium. This particular phase, he felt with
gratitude, could not last for ever; whatever impended (even the gallows,
he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could not fail to be
a relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him as an ingenious and even
183
Page
Quick Jump
|