From One Generation to AnotherMerriman, Henry Seton
General
From One Generation to Another
Merriman, Henry Seton
Fiction
He waited until the soft old church bell finished striking ten, then he
answered:
“To-morrow!”
They had reached the farthest limit of the wood and stood at the park
railing.
“Then--,” she paused, and seemed to collect herself as if for a leap;
“then good-bye, Jem!”
He took the outstretched hand; his large grasp seemed to swallow it up.
“Good-bye!” he said.
He climbed the rail without agility, paused for a moment, and the
moonlight happened to gleam on his face through the gently waving
branches as he looked down at her in dumb distress.
Then he turned and walked away across the shimmering grass.
A few minutes later Dora re-entered the drawing room. Her father and
mother were seated close together, closer than she had seen them for
years. Mrs. Glynde was pale, with two scarlet patches.
Dora collected her belongings, preparatory to going to bed.
“Jem,” she said quietly, “is absurdly proud of his new honours. It
affects his chin, which has gone up exactly one inch.”
Then she went to bed.
CHAPTER VII
ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
The more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people.
“Here--hi!”
As no one replied to this summons either, by voice or approach, the young
man subsided into occupied silence.
He was a very large young man, with a fair moustache which looked almost
flaxen against the deep tan of his face. This last, like the rest of him,
was ludicrously typical of that race which has wandered farther than the
Jews, and has hitherto managed, like them, to retain a few of its
characteristics. The Anglo-Saxonism of this youth was almost aggressive.
It lurked in the neat droop of moustache, which was devoid of that untidy
suggestion of a beer-mug characterising the labial adornment of a
northern flaxen nation of which we wot. It shone calmly in the glance of
a pair of reflectively deep blue eyes--it threw itself at one from the
pockets of an old tweed jacket worn in conjunction with regulation
top-boots and khaki breeches.
Moreover, it gave birth to a quiet sense of being as good as any one
else, and possibly better, which sat without conceit on his brow.
It would seem that he really did not want to be answered just then, for
he did not raise a voice accustomed to dominate the clatter of horses'
feet, nor did he pass any comment on the carelessness or criminal absence
of some person or persons unknown.
He merely took up his pen again, and proceeded to handle that mighty
weapon with an awkwardness suggestive of a greater skill with another
instrument only less powerful. He was seated on two reversed buckets,
pyramidally balanced, at a small table which had the air of wide
capabilities in some other sphere of usefulness. There was a weird
cunning in the legs of this table indicative of subtle change into a
camp-bed or possibly a canoe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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