United States or Ukraine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Let us," he said, "have some supper somewhere." Matravers shook his head. "I really have a great deal of work to do," he said, "and I must write this notice for the Day. I think that I will go straight home." Ellison thrust his arm through his companion's, and called a hansom. "It will only take us half an hour," he declared, "and we will go to one of the fashionable places. You will be amused!
Matravers smiled gravely as he took his seat in the box and looked out with some wonder at the ill-lit, half-empty theatre. "I am afraid," he said, "that I am very much out of place here, yet do not imagine that I bring with me any personal bias whatever. I know nothing of the play, and Isteinism is merely a phrase to me. To-night I have no individuality. I am a critic."
"I remain, "Yours truly, "JOHN MATRAVERS." His finger was upon the bell, when his servant entered, bearing a note upon a salver. Matravers glanced at the handwriting already becoming familiar to him, recognizing, too, the faint odour of violets which seemed to escape into the room as his fingers broke the seal. "It is half-past eleven and you have not come!
In Matravers' altered expression was something more than the transitory sensation of pleasure, called up by the unexpected appearance of a very beautiful woman. The whole impassiveness of that calm, almost marble-still face, with its set, cold lips, and slightly wearied eyes, had suddenly disappeared, and what Ellison had hoped for had arrived. Matravers was, without doubt, interested.
It was as though it had been actually drawn from the heart to the lips, and long after the house had become deserted, Matravers stood there, his hands resting upon the edge of the box, and his dark face turned steadfastly to that far-away corner, where it seemed to him that he could see a solitary, human figure, sitting with bowed head amongst the wilderness of empty seats.
She dropped Fergusson's arm he had left his guests to see her to her carriage and motioned to Matravers. "Won't you see me home?" she asked quietly. "I have sent my maid on, she was so tired, and I am all alone." "I shall be very pleased," Matravers answered. "May I come in with you?" Fergusson lingered for a moment or two at the carriage door, and then they drove off.
He held out his arms, and she came across the room to him with a sweet effort of self-yielding which yet waited for while it invited his embrace. "You mean it?" he murmured, "you are sure?" She did not answer him. But indeed there was no need. Matravers never altogether forgot the sensations with which he awoke on the following morning.
A handsomely appointed drag rattled past the club on its way into Piccadilly. The woman who occupied the front seat turned to look at the window as they passed, with some evident curiosity and their eyes met. Matravers set down the glass, which he had been in the act of raising to his lips, untasted. "Berenice and her Father Confessor!" he heard some one remark lightly from the next table.
Looking more than once into her pale face, Matravers realized again that wonderful change. His own emotions were curiously disturbed. He, himself, so remarkable through all his life for a changeless serenity of purpose, and a fixed masterly control over his whole environment, felt himself suddenly like a rudderless ship at the mercy of a great unknown sea. A sense of drifting was upon him.
Matravers moved slightly in his chair, he was suffering tortures. "Is it worth while recalling all these things?" he asked quietly. "Life cannot be a success for all of us; yet it is the future, and not the past." "I have no future," the man interrupted doggedly; "no future here, or in any other place. I have got my deserts.
Word Of The Day