She said:
"You understand that the management of the whole of the
expenditure of the income will be in your hands. There will be
five thousand a year." She thought that he cared very much about
the expenditure of an income of five thousand a year and that the
fact that she had done so much for him would rouse in him some
affection for her. But he was thinking exclusively of Maisie
Maidan--of Maisie, thousands of miles away from him. He was
seeing the mountains between them--blue mountains and the sea
and sunlit plains. He said:
"That is very generous of you." And she did not know whether that
were praise or a sneer. That had been a week before. And all that
week he had passed in an increasing agony at the thought that
those mountains, that sea, and those sunlit plains would be
between him and Maisie Maidan. That thought shook him in the
burning nights: the sweat poured from him and he trembled with
cold, in the burning noons--at that thought. He had no minute's
rest; his bowels turned round and round within him: his tongue
was perpetually dry and it seemed to him that the breath between
his teeth was like air from a pest-house.
He gave no thought to Leonora at all; he had sent in his papers.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249