“I have never loved a consumptive woman yet. And I have found one—it will be a strange emotional experience.”
“Oh, she’s consumptive, the faded lily, is she?” growled Myre. Aubrey smiled:
“She is beautiful,” he said—“and she has a hectic mind.”
CHAPTER LIV
Wherein the Widow Snacheur separates the Milk from Human Kindness
In a large and shabby room on the ground floor of the court, a dark blur in the gloom of the gathering dusk, crouched rather than sat the widow Snacheur—La bête noire, the street urchins had it in awed whisper, thrusting out mocking chins behind her back.
With hard old fingers she was smoothing out upon the bare table the crumpled sheet of newspaper which she had just unfolded from a package sent by a tradesman; the hawklike eyes strained to read the print, but the fading daylight smudged the page.
She drew her soiled black shawl more closely about her bent shoulders: