She greeted Jim with a weary cordiality. He
took her hand and kissed it and laid his other hand over it as usual.
She put her other hand on top of his and patted it--then withdrew her
slender fingers and sat down.
They glanced at each other and sighed. Jim was miserably informed now
that he had made the angelic Charity Coe a theme for gossip. He felt
guilty--irritatedly guilty, because he had the name without the game.
Charity Coe was in a dull mood. She was in a love lethargy. Her mind
was trying to persuade her heart that her devotion to Peter Cheever
was a wasted lealty, but her heart would not be convinced, though it
began to be afraid. She was as a watcher who sits in the next room
to one who is dying slowly and quietly. She could neither lose hope
nor use it.
Jim and Charity sat brooding for a long while. He had outstretched
himself on a sumptuous divan. She was seated on a carved chair,
leaning against the tall back of it like a figure in high relief.
About them the great room brooded colossally.
Gilfoyle would have hated Charity and Jim as perfect examples of the
idle rich, too stupid to work, too pampered to be worthy of sympathy.
But whether these two had a right to suffer or not, suffer they did.
The mansion was quiet. The other house-guests were motoring or darting
about the twilit tennis-court or trading in the gossip-exchange at
the Casino. Jim and Charity were marooned in a sleeping castle.
At length Jim broke forth, "For God's sake, sing.
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