Prev | Current Page 104 | Next

Bennett, Arnold, 1867-1931

"The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns"


Denry could hear her saying:
"You must eat it. Chocolate is so sustaining. There's nothing like it."
She ran back to the machines, and snatched more packets from Nellie, who
under her orders had been industrious; and then began a second
distribution.
A calm and disinterested observer would probably have been touched by
this spectacle of impulsive womanly charity. He might even have decided
that it was one of the most beautifully human things that he had ever
seen. And the fact that the hardy heroes and Norsemen appeared scarcely
to know what to do with the silver-wrapped bonbons would not have
impaired his admiration for these two girlish figures of benevolence.
Denry, too, was touched by the spectacle, but in another way. It was the
rents of his clients that were being thus dissipated in a very luxury of
needless benevolence. He muttered:
"Well, that's a bit thick, that is!" But of course he could do nothing.
As the process continued, the clicking of the machine exacerbated his
ears.
"Idiotic!" he muttered.
The final annoyance to him was that everybody except himself seemed to
consider that Ruth was displaying singular ingenuity, originality,
enterprise, and goodness of heart.


Pages:
92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116