Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then she turned and said something in Russian between her clenched teeth to Mr. Zanti. He would have answered her but very quietly and speaking now in English she flung at him, as though it had been a stone: "God curse you! You drove him to it!" Then she turned round and left the room. But the tall man was blubbering like a child.
Zanti standing in front of him, looking vast and very solemn in a blue cotton night-shirt. "Peter," Mr. Zanti seemed to be saying, "you see in me, one, two, a hundred men.... All my life I seek adventure fun and I find it but there 'as not been room for ze affections.
The band in Oxford Street was blazing with sound but it did not hide her crying. Mr. Zanti crossed to her and spoke to her but she suddenly let her hands fall from her face and turned upon him, furiously, wildly "You ..." she said, "You ..." and then as though the words choked her she turned back into the inner room. Peter saw Mr. Zanti's face and it was puckered with distress like a child's.
In the hall, hanging amongst the other things as a Pirate might hang beside a company of Evangelist ministers, was Stephen Brant's hat.... As Peter's hand turned on the handle of the study door he knew that his heart was beating with so furious a clamour that he could not hear the lock turn. He entered the room and found Stephen Brant and Mr. Zanti facing him.
"Of course you'll stay for dinner, you two " "But " said Mr. Zanti, mopping his brow from which perspiration was dripping. "No, nonsense. Of course you'll stop. We've got such heaps to talk about " Stephen had got the baby now on his shoulder. "Off to Cornwall," he shouted and charged down the room.
Zanti was himself a little responsible for this; it was so unusual for that large and smiling gentleman to waste the day idly; and yet there he was, starting every now and again for the door, looking into the empty yard from the windows at the back of the house, disappearing sometimes into the rooms above, reappearing suddenly with an air of unconcern a little too elaborately contrived.
"What 'ave you been doing, boy? Finished the book?" "Yes." "Ah, good. You'll be ze great man, Peter." He looked down at him proudly as a father might look upon his son. "Ze damnedest fog " he began, then suddenly he stopped and Peter felt his hand on his shoulder tighten. "Ze damnedest " Mr. Zanti said slowly. Peter looked up into his face. He was listening.
Lots of things have happened to me since I saw you, of course, but I'm just the same " Whilst he was speaking his voice had become eager, his eyes bright he began to pace the room excitedly "Oh, Zanti! ... the days we used to have. I suppose the times I've been having lately had put it all out of my head, but now, with you here, it's all as though it happened yesterday.
'E is a friend of mine and you will be kind to him. Mr. Peter, zis is Herr Gottfried Hanz I owe 'im much ver' clever man." They shook hands and Peter liked the pair of eyes that gazed into his. Then Mr. Zanti said, "Come, I will show you ze rest of ze place. It is not a mansion, you will find." Indeed it was not.
Zanti, would see much of Peter and of his beautiful wife of course she was beautiful and of the dear children that were to come Here Peter interrupted him. He had listened to the torrent of words in an odd confusion. The last time that he had seen Mr. Zanti he had left him, sitting with his head in his hands sobbing in the little bookshop. Since then everything had happened.
Word Of The Day