United States or Cocos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Not in your line, perhaps, but interesting to us glow-worms that flit about in ruinous places. I 'll be with you in a few moments." Even from the room beyond he continued the conversation in his own odd manner, passing to antipodal subjects by paths of association beyond the guess of an imagination less vagrant than his own. With Cardington conversation was a fine art.
He began to show some of that eloquence of which Cardington had spoken, an eloquence that derived its effect not from the artifices of rhetoric, but from a deep conviction and a personal grievance. He spoke in adequate language, that left no doubt of his meaning, and the meaning itself was sufficiently striking to rivet attention.
Evidently, Professor Cardington, his neighbour across the hall, had felt it and succumbed; else how could a man of his extraordinary talent have remained so long buried, as it were, from the world? Revolving this mystery in his mind, he passed into his sitting-room on the eastern side of the building.
A change had come into the relationship of these two, or rather a readjustment of the view of the younger man concerning the older, dating from the time when Cardington had disposed so neatly of his tentative wish to accompany him to Bermuda.
Howard was a quiet man, and very religious, but, what was rare in those times, he did not believe everybody in the wrong who thought differently from himself. He lived quietly among his books on a small estate he owned near Bedford, called Cardington, where he studied astronomy and questions about heat and cold, and when only twenty-nine was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
"Your astral body must have accompanied me," Leigh suggested. "I could report the conversation verbatim," Cardington declared. "She told you, among other things, that she was a genuine Bradford on her father's side, and uttered bulls of excommunication against pretenders to the honour.
Wolfstein was not sensitive. She chattered gaily all the way to the Haymarket. When they came into the Palm Court they found Lady Cardington already there, seated tragically in an armchair, and looking like a weary empress.
Among those who bought them were most of the guests who had been present at the Holmes' dinner-party when Lady Holme lost her temper and was consoled by Robin Pierce. Robin of course was in Rome, but Lady Cardington, Lady Manby, Mrs. Wolfstein, Sir Donald, Mr. Bry took seats. Rupert Carey also bought a ticket.
The wistful power that generally seemed a part of her personality had surely died out in her. There was something nervous in her expression, deprecating in her attitude. "Why do you speak about Sir Donald?" Lady Holme said. "Don't you know?" Lady Cardington looked up. There was an extraordinary sadness in her eyes, mingled with a faint defiance. "Know what?"
Pimpernel Schley hardly spoke at all. When someone, turning to her, asked her what she thought about the subject under discussion, she lifted her pale eyes and said, with the choir-boy drawl: "I've got no husband and never had one, so I guess I'm no kind of a judge." "I guess she's a judge of other women's husbands, though," said Mrs. Wolfstein to Lady Cardington.
Word Of The Day