United States or Mozambique ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Also there was something that drew him; it might be Eleanor, or it might be Madame Riennes. At any rate he felt a great longing to go. Putting everything else aside, these investigations had their delights. What other young fellow of his age could boast an Eleanor, who said she had been fond of him tens of thousands of years before?
The thought terrified him. What could he do? He had tried prayers, never before had he prayed so hard in all his life; but they did not seem to be of the slightest use. No guardian angel, not even Eleanor, appeared to protect him from Madame Riennes, and meanwhile, the fog was creeping on, and the octopus tentacles were gripping tighter.
You, you rejoice, yes, and shall rejoice for though sometimes I hate you I must tell it. Yet I am sorry if I have harmed you, and should you be able, I pray you, say a good word in the World of Speerits for your sinful old godmamma Riennes. So fare you well, who thinking that you have lost, have gained all. It is I, I who have lost.
However, Sunday was still a long way off, so he went to sleep and dreamed that he was buying presents at every shop in Lucerne and giving them all to Madame Riennes. On Thursday he was quite happy. On Friday he began to suffer from uneasiness, which on Saturday became very pronounced. It seemed to him that already waves of influence were creeping towards him like the fringes of some miasmic mist.
On one point he was determined. He would not go; never would he allow Madame Riennes to put him to sleep again, and what was much worse to make him kiss her. At any rate that spirit, Eleanor, was beautiful and attractive but Madame Riennes! Rather than forgather with her again in this affectionate manner, much as he dreaded it or her he would have compounded with the ghost called Eleanor.
Madame Riennes gibbered some invocation, but nothing happened. "I await your spirits. They cannot have gone to bed so early," remarked the Pasteur like a new Elijah. Then, also like Elijah, to use a vulgarism, he "sailed in" after a way which even the terrified Godfrey, who was crouching against one of the purple curtains, felt to be really magnificent with such artistic sense as remained to him.
He was very well now, and grew enormously in that pure and trenchant air, broadening as well as lengthening, till, notwithstanding his slimness, he gave promise of becoming a large, athletic man. Madame Riennes too and her unholy terrors had faded into the background.
"Because of the interruption give pardon, for it is owed an apology," said the solemn Professor, adding, "I think it must have been the emanation of Madame Riennes herself which led us to this place, where we did not at all mean to come, for she is very anxious to know how you progress and what you are doing."
Then with an effort she rose and suggested that they should return to the drawing-room. They did so, and were served with Turkish coffee and cigarettes, which Madame Riennes smoked one after the other very rapidly. Presently Miss Ogilvy rang the bell, and when the butler appeared to remove the cups, whispered something in French, at which he bowed and departed.
"It is the woman who holds the cards, if only she knows how to play them." Now all these things happened on a Wednesday. When Godfrey went to bed that night uncomfortable memories of Madame Riennes, and of the chaste embrace which she had forced him to impress upon her expansive forehead, haunted him for a while, also fears for the future.
Word Of The Day