"'You and your actress and her lover'," he murmured softly. "My God, I
am very unhappy!"
Chapter XV
The anonymous letter is still being written. This is the weapon of the
cowardly and envious heart, so filled with venom and malice that it
has the courage or brazenness to go about piously proclaiming the word
duty. Beware of the woman who has ink-stains on her fingers and a duty
to perform; beware of her also who never complains of the lack of
time, but who is always harking on duty, duty. Some people live close
to the blinds. Oft on a stilly night one hears the blinds rattle never
so slightly. Is anything going on next door? Does a carriage stop
across the way at two o'clock of a morning? Trust the woman behind the
blinds to answer. Coming or going, little or nothing escapes this
vigilant eye that has a retina not unlike that of a horse, since it
magnifies the diameter of everything nine times. To hope for the worst
and to find it, that is the golden text of the busybody. The busybody
is always a prude; and prude signifies an evil-minded person who is
virtuous bodily.
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