United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They talked until the last drop of Jacqueline's coffee had been drained; they talked until Jacqueline herself came silently back into the room and seated herself by Cartel's side, slipping her hand into his with artless spontaneity. Morality, science, religion, and then, in natural sequence, art music!
Jacqueline betrayed no disappointment; with a charming air she echoed the regret, the shake of the head, and slipped a confiding hand through M. Cartel's arm.
Max was once again a prey to impulse, and under the familiar tyranny, his blood burned raced in his veins, sang in his cars. Without an instant's pause, he knocked on M. Cartel's door, and when his knock was answered by Jacqueline fair and cool-looking, oven in the great heat words rushed from him as they had been wont to rush when life was a gay affair. "You are alone, Jacqueline?"
Max's eyes sought heaven or, in lieu of heaven, M. Cartel's ceiling; Max's hands freed Jacqueline's and flew out in ecstatic gesture. "Ah, that is for the gods to say, chérie! And the gods know best." Rapture gilded the world; rapture trembled on the air like the vibrations of a chord struck from some celestial harp.
Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary, and Hans Meyerstein, the Banking Cartel's lawyer, and Howlett, the Personnel Chief, and Buhrmann, the Commercial Secretary, have made up a sort of quadrumvirate and are trying to run things.
Before he could answer, before he could return smile or touch, she was gone absorbed into the maze of lights, and he was alone, to turn which way he would. The fifth floor was dim and silent, the door of M. Cartel's appartement was closed; but Max, mounting the stairs two steps at a time, was not daunted by silence or lack of light.
Max's eyes laughed. "M. Cartel's?" "M. Cartel's. Oh, boy, that seventh heaven! Those slippery steps!" "And the tip of a tiny finger?" Max was jesting; but Blake, lost in his own musings, did not perceive it. "For Cartel yes!" he said. "For me, no! I think I'd like the whole hand." Here Max picked up a tongs and stirred the logs until they blazed. "Absurd!" he said.
Blake must have reached the last step of the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, must indeed have turned the corner of the rue André de Sarte before the creaking of a footstep or the opening of a door disturbed the silence of the fifth floor; but, due time having expired due deference having been paid to taste and the proprieties the handle of M. Cartel's door was very softly turned, and Jacqueline slipped forth into the shadowed landing.
"I'm afraid not, Your Majesty." Ganzay didn't look particularly regretful. "The News Cartel's gotten hold of it and are using it; it'll be all over the Empire." He said that as though it meant something.
All was quiet and dim; she stumbled against the arm-chair and recoiled as though a friend had touched her inopportunely; then she passed blindly onward, finding the little hall, finding the outer door with groping hands. Outside was a deeper darkness, for here no starlight penetrated; but M. Cartel's door was ajar, and through the opening came a streak of lamplight and the hum of voices.
Word Of The Day