"
For a moment they kept perfectly still in that cab rolling on at a steady
jog-trot through a narrow city street full of bustle. Whatever she
expected she did not expect to feel his hand snatched away from her grasp
as if from a burn or a contamination. De Barral fresh from the stagnant
torment of the prison (where nothing happens) had not expected that sort
of news. It seemed to stick in his throat. In strangled low tones he
cried out, "You--married? You, Flora! When? Married! What for? Who
to? Married!"
His eyes which were blue like hers, only faded, without depth, seemed to
start out of their orbits. He did really look as if he were choking. He
even put his hand to his collar . . . "
* * * * *
"You know," continued Marlow out of the shadow of the bookcase and nearly
invisible in the depths of the arm-chair, "the only time I saw him he had
given me the impression of absolute rigidity, as though he had swallowed
a poker. But it seems that he could collapse. I can hardly picture this
to myself. I understand that he did collapse to a certain extent in his
corner of the cab.
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