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'At what hour shall I start? 'We all need rest; let us say at ten o'clock. 'All right, replied Merton. 'Now do, pray, try to get a good night of sleep. Mr. Macrae smiled wanly: 'I mean to force myself to read Emma, by Miss Austen, till the desired effect is produced. Merton went to bed, marvelling at the self-command of the millionaire.
"Never mind my sensitive conscience. What I want to know is, how did you know? Who told you that I was here?" It was significant that the possibility that Mrs Fanshawe had written of her guest never occurred to Claire's mind; that Erskine like herself discounted such a possibility. He replied with a matter-of-fact simplicity which left Claire marvelling at the obtuseness of mankind
"I never thought of that," I whispered back, even more appalled than before at the closeness of the shave, and marvelling at that something unyielding in his character which was carrying him through so finely. There was no agitation in his whisper. Whoever was being driven distracted, it was not he. He was sane. And the proof of his sanity was continued when he took up the whispering again.
On reaching it the youth threw a pebble up at a grating, and immediately a woman-servant who was waiting for them came down and opened the door to them, and they went in, leaving the party marvelling as much at their grace and beauty as at the fancy they had for seeing the world by night and without quitting the village; which, however, they set down to their youth.
While the guests were marvelling how these trees, that must have required at least a century to grow, could have come to be so tall and venerable in a single night, a breeze sprang up, and set their intermingled boughs astir. And then there was a deep, broad murmur in the air, as if the two mysterious trees were speaking. "I am old Philemon!" murmured the oak.
"It is not a pleasant sight," he said doubtfully. "I don't mind. Let me hold that," she said quietly, rolling up her sleeves and taking a crimson-spattered basin from Henri. Saint Hubert flashed another look at her, marvelling at her steady voice and even colour when he thought of the white-faced girl who had clung trembling to him ten minutes earlier.
In an instant he had leaped from his saddle, and his arm was holding her. She did not resist, marvelling rather at his own steadiness, nor did she then resent a tenderness in his voice. "I hope you will forgive me Virginia," he said. "I should not have mentioned this. And yet I could not help it." She looked up at him rather wildly. "It was I who stopped you," she said; "I was waiting for "
In those moments of excitement, he could not help thinking how often it was that the looker-on suffered far more than the one in peril, and he found himself marvelling at his companion's coolness, suspended there as he was with the dreadful echoing abyss below him, that which had given forth so terrible a splash when the stones of the old arch gave way.
More than once John Aldous had looked upon this same scene, and had listened to the trample and roar and wild revelry of it, marvelling that to-morrow the men of this saturnalia would again be the builders of an empire. The thin, hollow-cheeked faces that passed and repassed him, rouged and smiling, could not destroy in his mind the strength of the picture.
"You see I did it," Milly replied complacently, marvelling to herself how easy it had been to do, once she had determined upon this way out. "You must let me give you a party.... Thursday?" Mrs. Gilbert purred, ignoring delicate analysis. That was the beginning of a joyous whirl of engagements, luncheons, dinners, suppers, and theatre parties.
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