Death was repose, and neither for good nor for
evil had Quisante ever embraced repose. He had never been quiet; when he
was not achieving, he had been grimacing. In death he could do neither.
"I can't fancy the fellow dead," said Dick to his wife and his brother.
"I should be expecting him to jump up again every minute."
Lady Richard shuddered. The actual Quisante had been bad; the idea of a
dead Quisante horribly galvanized into movement by a restlessness that
the tomb could not stifle was hideous. Jimmy came to her aid with a
rather unfeeling but apparently serious suggestion.
"We must cremate him," he said gravely.
"No, but, barring rot," Dick pursued, "I don't believe he'll die, you
know."
"Poor May!" said Lady Richard. Neither of them pressed her to explain the
precise point in May Quisante's position which produced this exclamation
of pity. It might have been that the death was possible, or that the
death was not certain, or at least not near, or it might have sprung from
a purely general reflection on the unhappiness of having life coupled
with the life of such a man as Quisante.
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