“My dear man,” I said, “don’t you see the uselessness of prolonging this?”
“Yes, I do,” he answered abruptly; and before I could forestall his movement he rose and walked out of the room.
There was a long silence, measured by the lessening reverberations of his footsteps down the wooden floor of the corridor.
When they ceased I approached Mrs. Amyot, who had sunk into her chair. I held out my hand and she took it without a trace of resentment on her ravaged face.
“I sent his wife a seal-skin jacket at Christmas!” she said, with the tears running down her cheeks.
SOULS BELATED
Their railway-carriage had been full when the train left Bologna; but at the first station beyond Milan their only remaining companion—a courtly person who ate garlic out of a carpet-bag—had left his crumb-strewn seat with a bow.
Lydia’s eye regretfully followed the shiny broadcloth of his retreating back till it lost itself in the cloud of touts and cab-drivers hanging about the station; then she glanced across at Gannett and caught the same regret in his look. They were both sorry to be alone.
“Par-ten-za!” shouted the guard. The train vibrated to a sudden slamming of doors; a waiter ran along the platform with a tray of fossilized sandwiches; a belated porter flung a bundle of shawls and band-boxes into a third-class carriage; the guard snapped out a brief Partensa! which indicated the purely ornamental nature of his first shout; and the train swung out of the station.