Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
"I mean, my good friend," he said, "that if I asked you to chuck it all and go round the world with me you'd see me damned first." Crowther's eyes dropped gravely to the job in hand. "Say when!" he said. Piers made a restless movement. "Oh, that's enough! Strong drink is not my weakness. Why don't you answer my question?" "I didn't know you asked one," said Crowther.
They sat down in a comparatively quiet corner, whence they could watch the ever-shifting picture without being disturbed. A very peculiar mood possessed Piers. He was restless and uneasy in spite of his high spirits. For no definite reason he wanted to keep on the move. In deference to Crowther's wish, he controlled the desire, but it was an obvious effort.
The words were spoken, and after them came silence such a silence as could be felt. Once the hands that gripped Crowther's seemed about to slacken, and then in a moment they tightened again as the hands of a drowning man clinging to a spar. Crowther attempted nothing in the way of sympathy or consolation. He merely stood ready.
He did not speak for several seconds, but smoked on with eyes fixed straight before him as though they scanned a far-distant horizon. At length: "I rather think the shaping has begun, sonny," he said. "You don't believe in prayer now?" "No, I don't," said Piers. Crowther's eyes came down to him. "Can't you pray without believing?" he said slowly. Piers made a restless movement.
Something of electricity ran through Piers; there came as it were the ripple of muscles contracting for a spring. Yet still he stood motionless, menacing but inactive. "I will not!" Sudden and hard Crowther's answer came; his hold became a grip. By sheer unexpectedness of action, he forced Piers back against the door behind him. It gave inwards, and they stumbled into the darkness of the bedroom.
This girl whom you hope to marry I gather you are pretty sure of her?" Piers threw back his head with a gesture that defied the world. "I am quite sure of her," he said; and a moment later, with impulsive confidence: "She has just taken the trouble to write at length and tell me why she can't have me." "Ah?" Crowther's tone held curiosity as well as kindly sympathy. "A sound reason?"
At length, "Her name," he said slowly, "is Denys." Piers made a sudden movement that passed unexplained. There fell a few moments of silence. Then, in a voice even more measured than Crowther's, he spoke. "As it happens, I have met her. Tell me what you know about her, if you don't mind." Again Crowther hesitated. "Go on," said Piers. They were facing one another in the darkness.
Her lips quivered in a smile. "Piers!" she said. "Can you picture it?" "Yes, I can. Because I know that only patience can have brought him to where he is at present. They say it is nothing short of a miracle, and I believe it. God often works His miracles that way. And I always knew that Piers was great." Crowther's slow smile appeared, transforming his whole face.
He came from Queensland, had been present that night when I fought and killed Denys, and he recognized me. Then he got tight and told everybody who would listen. It was rotten luck, but it had to happen." He paused momentarily; then: "I wasn't enjoying myself, Crowther, before it happened," he said. "I saw that, sonny." Crowther's arm pressed his shoulder in sympathy.
You paid a heavy price for her. But even so, you don't deserve to keep her if you forget that she has paid too. By Heaven, Piers, she must have loved you a mighty lot to have done it!" He paused, for Piers had made a sharp, involuntary movement as of a man in intolerable pain. He almost wrenched himself from Crowther's hand, and walked to the low wall of the terrace.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking