Wingrave is utterly heartless!"
"That," she answered steadfastly, "I do not believe."
"You do not because you will not," he declared. "I have spoken because
I wish to save you from doing what you would repent of for the rest of
your days. You have the one vanity which is common to all women. You
believe that you can change what, believe me, is unchangeable. To
Wingrave, women are less than playthings. He owes the unhappiness of
his life to one, and he would see the whole of her sex suffer without
emotion. He is impregnable to sentiment. Ask him and I believe that he
would admit it!"
She smiled and regarded him with the mild pity of superior knowledge.
"You do not understand Mr. Wingrave," she remarked.
Aynesworth sighed. He realized that every word he had spoken had been
wasted upon this pale, pretty woman, who sat with her eyes now turned
seawards, and the smile still lingering upon her lips. Studying her
for a moment, he realized the danger more acutely than ever before.
The fretfulness seemed to have gone from her face, the weary lines
from her mouth. She had the look of a woman who has come into the
knowledge of better things. And it was Wingrave who had done this!
Aynesworth for the first time frankly hated the man. Once, as a boy,
he had seen a keeper take a rabbit from a trap and dash its brains out
against a tree. The incident flashed then into his mind, only the face
of the keeper was the face of Wingrave!
"DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST"
Wingrave and Aynesworth were alone in a private room of the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132