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Allen, Grant, 1848-1899

"The Woman Who Did"

With an
effort she gulped down her tears and her sighs, and pretended to
look with interest in the directions he pointed. SHE could see
nothing in it all but dry hill-sides, crowned with still drier
towns; unimagined stretches of sultry suburb; devouring wastes of
rubbish and foul immemorial kitchen-middens. And the very fact
that for Alan's sake she couldn't bear to say so--seeing how
pleased and proud he was of Perugia, as if it had been built from
his own design--made the bitterness of her disappointment more
difficult to endure. She would have given anything at that moment
for an ounce of human sympathy.
She had to learn in time to do without it.
They spent that night at the comfortable hotel, perhaps the best in
Italy. Next morning, they were to go hunting for apartments in the
town, where Alan knew of a suite that would exactly suit them.
After dinner, in the twilight, filled with his artistic joy at
being back in Perugia, his beloved Perugia, he took Herminia out
for a stroll, with a light wrap round her head, on the terrace of
the Prefettura.


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