"He is not hunting her; yet, should he find her, I have the fear he would do his duty as a soldier, anyhow. No, he was looking, I think, for Ferry's scouts."
He found a note for himself on the hall table, and with it in his hand walked into his wifes room to see if she had returned from church. She was already there, resting a little after the fatigue of worship, and extremely voluble.He interrupted her.
ONE:"Of course, if they come and stay all day, they must have something to eat, and so I saw the reason of their having tea and other refreshments peddled about the house. Then there were men who sold books which gave an account of the play, and had portraits of some of the principal players. I suppose these books were really the bills of the play; and if we could have read them, we should have known something about the[Pg 234] performance more than we do now.
ONE:Suddenly the whole of the vague internal movements of her mind flashed into his vision, as intelligible as some perfectly simple business{146} proposition. She had a certain justification too: it was awkward that Norah had run into the exit of the ladies, that his wife had been saying that none of them ever entered the library. He knew the mind of Bracebridge pretty well, the slightly malicious construction that women like Mrs Fyson would find themselves compelled to put on it all. He knew also the mind of his wife, and the effect which it clearly had had on her. Her sense of propriety, of dignity had been assaulted: it was a queer thing to have happened. Then there was Norahs presence in her drawing-room. He had insisted on that, for, at the moment, it seemed the most straightforward thing to do. But he was beginning to think it had been a mistake. Something about the girl, her beauty (and never had that struck him so forcibly as when he saw her standing by Alice), her air of breeding, of education, of simplicity in front of those draped easels and painted looking-glasses had stirred some long latent potentiality for jealousy in his wife. It was that suggestion which suddenly enraged him.
THREE:I had already tried hard to get something said, but had found myself at every turn entangled in generalities. Now, stammering and gagging I remarked that our experiences of the morning, both in church and out, had in some way combined with an earlier word of his own to me, and given me a valuable thought. "You remember, when I wanted to shoot that Yankee off my horse?"
THREE:"Not the first time the director of a bank has appropriated part of the funds," said the Doctor. "Didn't you find that an orange would buy more cherries or apples at one time than at another?"
"The Japanese have ventured upon that feature of Western civilization known as a national debt, and how they will get out of it time alone will determine. At present they are increasing their indebtedness every year, and their paper does not show any signs of redemption. They have also, as you have seen, a paper currency like our national issue in America, and so much like ours is it that it is known as the Japanese greenbacks. They have notes of the same denominations as ours; and they also have a fractional currency, such as we had during the war of 1861 and the years that followed. The premium on coin has gone steadily upwards, partly in consequence of the large issue, and partly owing to the hostility of foreign bankers and others, who have done all they could to bring the Japanese credit into discredit."There was a sound at the top of the corridor, just the suggestion of a swish of silken drapery, and Gordon Bruce half turned. Under a cluster of electric lights stood Leona Lalage; she must have seen everything. It might have been fancy, it might have been a guilty conscience, but just for the moment Countess Lalage seemed transformed into a white fury with two murderous demons gleaming in her dark restless eyes. Then her silk and ivory fan fell from her hands, and Gordon hastened to recover it."I mean that we are about to have a typhoon."
