Purposely I made no sign. "You
understand?" he asked.
"Perfectly," I said. "You are the expert in the psychological
wilderness. This is like one of those Red-skin stories where the noble
savages carry off a girl and the honest backwoodsman with his
incomparable knowledge follows the track and reads the signs of her fate
in a footprint here, a broken twig there, a trinket dropped by the way. I
have always liked such stories. Go on."
Marlow smiled indulgently at my jesting. "It is not exactly a story for
boys," he said. "I go on then. The sign, as you call it, was not very
plentiful but very much to the purpose, and when Mr. Powell heard (at a
certain moment I felt bound to tell him) when he heard that I had known
Mrs. Anthony before her marriage, that, to a certain extent, I was her
confidant . . . For you can't deny that to a certain extent . . . Well
let us say that I had a look in . . . A young girl, you know, is
something like a temple. You pass by and wonder what mysterious rites
are going on in there, what prayers, what visions? The privileged men,
the lover, the husband, who are given the key of the sanctuary do not
always know how to use it.
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