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Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

"Chance"

"No! No! If it is as you
say then not a day, not an hour, not a moment." She stuck to it, very
determined that there should be no more of that boy and girl philandering
since the object of it was gone; angry with herself for having suffered
from it so much in the past, furious at its having been all in vain.
But she was reasonable enough not to quarrel with him finally. What was
the good? She found means to placate him. The only means. As long as
there was some money to be got she had hold of him. "Now go away. We
shall do no good by any more of this sort of talk. I want to be alone
for a bit." He went away, sulkily acquiescent. There was a room always
kept ready for him on the same floor, at the further end of a short
thickly carpeted passage.
How she passed the night, this woman with no illusions to help her
through the hours which must have been sleepless I shouldn't like to say.
It ended at last; and this strange victim of the de Barral failure, whose
name would never be known to the Official Receiver, came down to
breakfast, impenetrable in her everyday perfection.


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