But they ate and they drank when they regained Edna's little
dining-room--which was comparatively early in the evening.
It was late when he left her. It was getting to be more than a passing
whim with Arobin to see her and be with her. He had detected the latent
sensuality, which unfolded under his delicate sense of her nature's
requirements like a torpid, torrid, sensitive blossom.
There was no despondency when she fell asleep that night; nor was there
hope when she awoke in the morning.
XXXVI
There was a garden out in the suburbs; a small, leafy corner, with a
few green tables under the orange trees. An old cat slept all day on the
stone step in the sun, and an old mulatresse slept her idle hours away
in her chair at the open window, till, some one happened to knock on one
of the green tables. She had milk and cream cheese to sell, and bread
and butter. There was no one who could make such excellent coffee or fry
a chicken so golden brown as she.
The place was too modest to attract the attention of people of fashion,
and so quiet as to have escaped the notice of those in search of
pleasure and dissipation. Edna had discovered it accidentally one day
when the high-board gate stood ajar.
Pages:
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218