[Nancy by Rhoda Broughton]@TWC D-Link book
Nancy

CHAPTER XXXIX
8/13

He, too, has seen him; I can tell it in an instant by his face, and by the expression of his eyes, as they meet mine.

I try to look back unflinchingly, indifferently, at him.

I would give ten years of my life for an unmoved complexion, but it is no use.

Struggle as I will against it, I feel that rush, that torrent of vivid scarlet, that, retiring, leaves me as white as my gown.

Oh! it _is_ hard, is not it, that the lying changefulness of a deceitful skin should have power to work me such hurt?
"Are you faint ?" Roger asks, bending toward me, and speaking in a low and icy voice; "shall I get you a glass of water ?" "No, thank you!" I reply, resolutely, and with no hesitation or stammer in my tone, "I am not at all faint." But, alas! my words cannot undo what my false cheeks, with their meaningless red and their causeless white, have so fully done.
The season is over now; every one has trooped away from the sun-baked squares, and the sultry streets of the great empty town.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books