Self-contempt attacked self-conceit like an acid. He saw Michael Lanyard
a sorry figure, sitting stultified with self-pity ... crying over spilt
milk....
Impatiently he shook himself. What though he had to-night forfeited his
chances? He could, nay, would, make others. He must....
To what end? Would life be sweeter if one found a way to restore to Cecelia
Brooke her precious document and to smuggle back to Mrs. Arden her pilfered
diamonds? Would this deadly ache of loneliness be less poignant with
Ekstrom dead?
With lack-lustre eyes he looked round that cheerless room, reckoning its
perfunctory pretense of comfort the forlornest mockery. To lodgings such as
this he was condemned for life, to an interminable sequence of transient
quarters, sordid or splendid, rich or mean, alike in this common quality of
hollow loneliness....
His aimless gaze wandered toward the door opening on the public hallway,
and became fixed upon a triangular shape of white paper, the half of an
envelope tucked between door and sill.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291