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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"

But
now, instead of that, he had decided to stay and face it all out, he
had confessed at last that secret that he had hidden from all the
world, and he had submitted to the will of a girl whom he scarcely
knew and was not even sure that he liked.
He stopped at that for a moment and, standing in a little pool of
purple light under the benignant friendliness of a golden moon new
risen and solitary, he considered it. No, he did not know whether he
liked her--it was interest rather that drew him, her strangeness,
her strength and loneliness, young and solitary like the moon above
him--and yet--also some feeling softer than interest so that he was
suddenly touched as he thought of her and spoke out aloud: "I'll be
good to her--whatever happens, by God I'll be good to her," so that
a chauffeur near him turned and looked with hard scornful eyes, and
a girl somewhere laughed. With all his conventional dislike of being
in any way "odd" he walked hurriedly on, confused and wondering more
than ever what it was that had happened to him. Always before he had
known his own mind--now, in everything, he seemed to be pulled two
ways.


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