Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
She went off, in the best of spirits, to the work in front of her, which after all was a more reasonable cure than tossing about the Outer Hebrides in a five-ton yacht. I drove home to bed and slept the sleep of the perfect altruist. I was reading the Moniteur du Puy de Dome on the hotel terrace next morning, when Lackaday was announced.
There's not a word to be said. Monsieur le Capitaine, see that the General eats instead of talking too much." She beamed. "Au grand plaisir de vous revoir." We stood bare-headed and shook hands and watched her make a gracious exit. As soon as she crossed the tram-lines, she turned and waved her fingers at me. "A charming woman," said I. Lackaday smiled in his sad babyish way.
I wrote all that stuff about myself because I couldn't help it. It enabled me to find my balance, to keep myself sane. I had to bridge over connect somehow the Andrew Lackaday of 1914 with the Andrew Lackaday of 1919. A couple of months ago, I thought of sending it to you. You know my beginnings and my dear old father Ben Flint and so forth. You came bang into the middle of my most intimate life.
Infinite pity for Lackaday. General Lackaday. Old dreams. The lost illusion. The tomb of love. Horror of Petit Patou and so da capo, endlessly round and round. At least, this figure gave me the only clue to her frame of mind. If she went on gyrating in this way indefinitely, she must go mad. No human consciousness could stand it. For sanity she must stop at some point.
"You flatter me," grinned Andrew, "but I don't see what the necessity of earning bread and butter has to do with a reinforced-concrete mind." "It's such an undignified way of earning it," protested Elodie. "I think," said Bakkus, "it will take as much courage for our poor friend to re-become Petit Patou, as it took for him to become General Lackaday."
It was a relief to rise and fall into groups as we strolled down the terrace to coffee. I manoeuvred Elodie and Bakkus to the front leaving Auriol and Lackaday to follow. I sought a table at the far end, for coffee; but when I turned round, I discovered that the pair had descended by the mid-way flight of three or four steps to the grass-plotted and fountained terrace below. We sat down.
He had gone about his funny business with the air of a curate marrying his vicar to the object of his hopeless affections. And Coincon had devastatingly insulted him. He wasn't, nom de Dieu, carrying about freaks at a fair. He wanted a comedian and not a giant. No wonder the Cirque Rocambeau had come to grief, if it depended on such canaries as Lackaday.
"The thunder last night, perhaps." He nodded. "Women have nerves." That something had happened was obvious. I remembered last night's half-hearted performance. "By the way," said I, "Bakkus mentioned in his note that he was going over to Clermont-Ferrand to see you." "Yes," said Lackaday, "I left him there. He has marvellous tact and influence when he chooses to exert them.
The actor took up the high place of histrionic fame which he had abandoned. He was the exponent of a great art. The dual supremacy brought the public to his feet. His appearance was the triumph both of the artist and the soldier. No. He, Lackaday, held no such position.
"It is not good," said Elodie, in quick anticipation, "that the General should neglect his English friends." There sounded the note of proprietorship, audible to anybody. Auriol's eyes dwelt for a second on Elodie; then she turned to Lackaday. "Madame Patou is quite right." Said he, with one of his rare flights into imagery, "I was but a shooting star across the English firmament."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking