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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"


Here there was no prettiness, no sensuality, no sentiment. There was
something so new that he felt like Cortez upon his peak in Darien.
"It's all right," he reassured her urgently. "It's all right. I
promise you it is. The great thing is to look yourself. And you'll
never be the least like any one else." He meant that to be the first
open declaration of his own particular discovery of her, but he was
aware that his sentence could have more than one interpretation.
Uncomfortably conscious then of his sister's regard of them, he
looked up and said:
"Amy, Miss Cardinal's been telling me how confusing London is to
her. You've got as good an idea of London as any one in the world.
You should take her to one or two places and show her things."
Amy Warlock, every line of her stiff body firing at them both her
hostility, answered:
"Oh, I don't think Miss Cardinal would care for me as a guide. _I_
shouldn't be able to show her interesting things. We have scarcely,
I should fancy, enough in common. Miss Cardinal's interests are, I
imagine, very different from my own."
The tone, the words, fell into the sudden silence like a lighted
match into water.


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