He felt that these men were calmly taking his
measure. Especially Sam Carr.
He wanted to go on talking. He protested against their intercourse
congealing in that fashion. But he could find no opening. His
conversational stock-in-trade, he had the sense to realize, was totally
unlike theirs. He could do nothing but sit still, remain physically
inert while he was mentally in a state of extreme unrest. He ventured a
banality about the weather. Carr smiled faintly. Tommy Ashe observed
offhand that the heat was beastly, but not a patch to blizzards and
frost. Then they were silent again.
Thompson had effected a sort of compromise with his principles when he
sought Carr. He had more or less consciously resolved to keep his
calling in the background, to suppress the evangelical tendency which
his training had made nearly second nature. This for the sake of
intelligent companionship. He was like a man sentenced to solitary
confinement. Even the temporary presence of a jailer is a boon to such,
a break in the ghastly solitude. But he was fast succumbing to a despair
of reaching across the barrier of this critical silence and he was about
to rise and leave when he happened to look about and see Sophie Carr
standing within arm's length, gazing at him with a peculiar intentness,
a mild look of surprise upon her vivid young face, a trace of
puzzlement.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74