FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  
pered, clutching my wrist with his damp, shaking fingers. "Stay--a minute." "But you want something to pull you round. I shan't be two seconds," I answered, trying to unclasp his clinging fingers. "Never mind! Oh, Vic, for God's sake stay." There was an abject appeal in the bloodshot eyes, a desperate tenacity in his clutch. He looked at me as if he dared look nowhere else. Some horror seemed pressing upon his confused and weakened brain, and I thought I could soothe him best by staying. "Very well--there, I'm not going," I said, reassuringly. Still he did not relax his grip upon me, but his eyes closed again, and he seemed satisfied. I sat down on a chair at the bedside and waited. The sun poured brighter and brighter through the blinds and touched up the mantelpiece. The photograph of Faina's sister, surrounded by some others of her set, was propped up in the centre of it, on a couple of paper volumes. My own head was aching violently now, and after a time the woman's figure on the glossy, sun-flecked surface of the card began to sway and swim before my eyes as I looked lazily at it. The minutes passed by and Howard did not move. At last, I ventured to try and withdraw my stiffening arm without rousing him, but at the first movement his fingers tightened and his groans recommenced. After a time my hunger passed into drowsiness. I leant forward gradually, and at last my head sank down on the edge of his bed, and I drifted into oblivion. CHAPTER IV. May had come round again. The days and weeks had glided by in a monotony of work, varied by feverish blanks when I could do nothing, and the pile of manuscript lay growing dusty in its corner. Then at last the day arrived when the final line was written and the whole despatched. That was three months back, three months of anxious waiting, in which Howard had chaffed me daily on my looks and health. "You're dwindling to a most interesting skeleton, Vic," he used to say. "Catch me bothering myself about anything I wrote in the same way." Now, however, it was over. I had just left the publisher's office. The book had been accepted, and I was a free man. A gush of fresh life ran through me and stirred in my veins in response to the fresh life of spring that seemed in the sunny air, in the green leaves fluttering round the Bourse, in the white butterflies that floated across the dusty asphalt. When I got back I found Howard half asleep in the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Howard

 

fingers

 

looked

 

brighter

 

passed

 
months
 

recommenced

 

movement

 

corner

 
despatched

written

 
tightened
 

arrived

 

groans

 

glided

 

monotony

 

forward

 

oblivion

 

drifted

 

CHAPTER


manuscript

 

hunger

 

gradually

 

feverish

 

varied

 

blanks

 

drowsiness

 

growing

 

dwindling

 

stirred


response

 
spring
 

accepted

 

asphalt

 

asleep

 
floated
 

fluttering

 

leaves

 

Bourse

 

butterflies


office

 

publisher

 

skeleton

 

interesting

 

health

 

waiting

 
anxious
 

chaffed

 

bothering

 

figure