DOI article:
D'Arcy, Ella: The pleasure-pilgrim
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21806#0070
66 The Pleasure-Pilgrim
came a sudden, sharp crack, a tiny smoke film. She stood an
instant swaying slightly, smiling certainly, distinctly outlined
against the background of rain-washed window, of grey falling
rain, the top of her head cutting in two the Ritterhausen
escutcheon. Then all at once there was nothing at all between
him and the window ; he saw the coat-of-arms entire ; but a
motionless, inert heap of plush and lace, and fallen wine-red hair,
lay at his feet upon the floor.
“ Child, child, what have you done ? ” he cried with anguish,
and kneeling beside her, lifted her up, and looked into her
face.
* * * * *
When from a distance of time and place Campbell was at last
able to look back with some degree of calmness on the catastrophe,
the element which stung him most keenly was this : he could
never convince himself that Lulie had really loved him after all.
And the only two persons who had known them both, and the
circumstances of the case, sufficiently well to have resolved
his doubts one way or the other, held diametrically opposite
views.
“Well, just listen, then, and Pli teil you how it was,” Miss
Nannie Dodge had said to him impressively, the day before he
left Schloss-Altenau for ever, “ Lulie was tremendously, terribly
in love with you. And when she found that you wouldn’t care
about her, she didn’t want to live any more. As to the way in
which it happened, you don’t need to reproach yourself for that.
She’d have done it, anyhow : if not then, why, later. But it’s all
the rest of your conduct to her that was so cruel. Your cold,
complacent British unresponsiveness. I guess you’ll never find
another woman to love you as Lulie did. She was just the
darlingest, the sweetest, the most loving girl in the world.”
Mayne,
came a sudden, sharp crack, a tiny smoke film. She stood an
instant swaying slightly, smiling certainly, distinctly outlined
against the background of rain-washed window, of grey falling
rain, the top of her head cutting in two the Ritterhausen
escutcheon. Then all at once there was nothing at all between
him and the window ; he saw the coat-of-arms entire ; but a
motionless, inert heap of plush and lace, and fallen wine-red hair,
lay at his feet upon the floor.
“ Child, child, what have you done ? ” he cried with anguish,
and kneeling beside her, lifted her up, and looked into her
face.
* * * * *
When from a distance of time and place Campbell was at last
able to look back with some degree of calmness on the catastrophe,
the element which stung him most keenly was this : he could
never convince himself that Lulie had really loved him after all.
And the only two persons who had known them both, and the
circumstances of the case, sufficiently well to have resolved
his doubts one way or the other, held diametrically opposite
views.
“Well, just listen, then, and Pli teil you how it was,” Miss
Nannie Dodge had said to him impressively, the day before he
left Schloss-Altenau for ever, “ Lulie was tremendously, terribly
in love with you. And when she found that you wouldn’t care
about her, she didn’t want to live any more. As to the way in
which it happened, you don’t need to reproach yourself for that.
She’d have done it, anyhow : if not then, why, later. But it’s all
the rest of your conduct to her that was so cruel. Your cold,
complacent British unresponsiveness. I guess you’ll never find
another woman to love you as Lulie did. She was just the
darlingest, the sweetest, the most loving girl in the world.”
Mayne,