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The smile of Felix had never been more whimsically employed than during that ten-day visit. The evening John Freeland came to dinner was the highwater mark of his alarmed amusement. Mr. Cuthcott, also bidden, at Nedda's instigation, seemed to take a mischievous delight in drawing out those two young people in face of their official uncle.
He watched those lips transferred to Nedda, heard her say: "Oh, my darling, how lovely to see you! Do you know this for midge-bites?" A hand, diving deep into a pocket, returned with a little silver-coated stick having a bluish end. Felix saw it rise and hover about Nedda's forehead, and descend with two little swift dabs. "It takes them away at once."
And for the first time an inkling of the great comic equipoise in Floodgate Street and human affairs stole on Nedda's consciousness. They puffed and puffed, and only made smoke in the middle!
And very mysterious to her that morning was the kaleidoscope of Oxford Street and its innumerable girls, and women, each going about her business, with a life of her own that was not Nedda's. For men she had little use just now, they had acquired a certain insignificance, not having gray-black eyes that smoked and flared, nor Harris tweed suits that smelled delicious.
"Nothing is nicer than darkness, as I said just now, because you can only see the way you MUST go instead of a hundred and fifty ways you MIGHT. In darkness your soul is something like your own; in daylight, lamplight, moonlight, never." Nedda's spirit gave a jump; he seemed almost at last to be going to talk about the things she wanted, above all, to find out.
The pleasure of the dinner to Felix and it was not too great was in watching Nedda's face. She hardly spoke, but how she listened! Nor did Derek say much, but what he did say had a queer, sarcastic twinge about it. "An unpleasant young man," was John's comment afterward. "How the deuce did he ever come to be Tod's son?
Hoddan found that he could make a fairly dispassionate guess of what advantage say Nedda's father would take of people who would not check on his good faith for two years and until they were two years' journey away. The business men on Krim would have some sort of code determining how completely one could swindle a customer. Don Loris, now "How badly were you cheated?" asked Hoddan.
The great cathedral, cutting the heavens with its massive towers, was shut. No means of getting in; and while they stood there looking up the thought came into Nedda's mind: Where would they bury poor Tryst who had killed himself? Would they refuse to bury that unhappy one in a churchyard? Surely, the more unhappy and desperate he was, the kinder they ought to be to him!
Derek is simply full of it; I want to feel like that, too, and I mean to." His face grew twinkly; he put out his hand. And wondering a little whether he meant her to, Nedda timidly stretched forth her own and grasped it. "I like you," he said. "Love your cousin and don't worry." Nedda's eyes slipped into the distance. "But I'm afraid for him. If you saw him, you'd know."
Flora, herself not too present-minded, had in these days occasion to speak to him about the absent-minded way in which he fulfilled even the most domestic duties, and Alan was always saying to him, "Buck up, Dad!" With Nedda's absorption into the little Joyfields whirlpool, the sun shone but dimly for Felix.
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