Yes, if the young
donkey could be forced past this tempting patch of grazing, if he could
only be driven a short distance farther down the highway of custom,
Claire would be safe.
But she must be made to think that such a conclusion had been purely
the result of Peyton's reserved strength, and not of a mere negative
surrender following doubt. And, above all, there must be no appearance
of Mina Raff having, after a short trial, herself discarded him. On
such trivialities Claire's ultimate happiness might hang. Truth was
once more wholly restrained, hidden, dissimulated; the skillful
shifting of painted masks, false-faces, continued uninterrupted its
progress. A new lethargy enveloped Lee: his interest, his confidence,
in what he was trying to prevent waned. What did it matter who went and
who stayed? In the end it was the same, unprofitable and stale. All,
probably, that his thought had accomplished was to rob his ride of its
glow, make flat the taste of the whiskey and charged water he prepared.
However, shortly a pervading warmth--but it was of the spirits--brought
back his lately unfamiliar sense of well-being.
* * * * *
The Morrises lived in a large remodelled brick house, pleasantly
pseudo-classic, beyond the opposite boundary of Eastlake; and, leaving
his car in the turn of the drive past the main door, Lee walked into
the wide hall which swept from front to back, and found a small dinner
party at the stage of coffee and cigarettes.
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