Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
"I've only half an hour to spare." Drexley turned his head only just sufficiently to see who it was that addressed him. "Is that you, Jesson?" he said. "No thanks. I gave up billiards long ago." Douglas remained by his side. "They tell me," he remarked, "that two years ago you were the best player in the club. Why don't you keep it up?" "Lost interest," was the brief reply.
"Neither," Rice answered, smiling. "Drexley is always a bear, and Spargetti's credit is a thing which not one of the chosen has ever seen the bottom of." "Then what in the name of all that is unholy," Douglas asked, "ails you?" Rice lighted a cigarette, glanced around, and leaned over the table. "You, my friend and host. You are upon my mind. I will confess." Douglas nodded and waited.
In a momentary fit of introspection he told himself, then, that her sex had scarcely ever troubled him. "I think I know, Mr. Drexley," he said, "why you have spoken to me like this, and I can assure you that I am grateful. If Emily de Reuss is what you say, I am very sorry, for I have never received anything but kindness from her.
"Does the Countess de Reuss intend to be kind to him?" Rice asked. "Go to the devil!" Drexley answered savagely. There followed a time then when the black waters of nethermost London closed over Douglas's head.
"We will take him home." But Drexley heard and shook his head. He spoke then for the first time. "I want a word with Jesson," he said. "I'm sorry I made a fool of myself. I'm all right now. You needn't hold me." They stood away from him. He made no movement. "I've a word or two to say to Jesson in private," he said. "No one need be afraid of me.
So I pleaded with her, and at first I thought that I had won." "Ah. Others have thought that," Drexley scoffed. "She answered me," Douglas continued, in a tone momentarily softened, "as I would have had her answer me, and for a time I thought that I was going to be the happiest man in the world.
All the magazines were open to him, although he was tied down to write for no other newspaper. The passionate effort of one night of misery had brought him out for ever from amongst the purgatory of the unrecognised. For his work was full of grit, often brilliant, never dull. Even Drexley, who hated him, admitted it. Emily de Reuss was charmed.
"There are women," Drexley said, "who are very beautiful and very attractive, who admit at times to their friendship men with whom anything but friendship would be impossible, and who contrive to insinuate in some subtle way that their personality is for themselves alone, or for some other chosen one.
He had come from the north somewhere, and he was about your age. But he is only one of a score. There is Drexley, a broken man. Once he wrote prose, which of its sort was the best thing going. To-day he is absolutely nerveless. He cannot write a line, and he is drinking heavily. That he has not gone under altogether is simply because as yet he has not received his final dismissal.
She was very kind to me indeed, and if ever she wishes me to go and see her I will go, of course. But fashionable life, as a whole, has no attractions for me. I am happier where I am." Drexley stood up and held out his hand. "I congratulate you," he said. "Don't think I'm an absolute driveller, but don't forget what I've said, if even at present the need for a warning doesn't exist.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking