Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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‘Yes, he’s changing.’

‘Well I’ll go up. I suppose it’s nearly supper time. Oh yes, it’s AFTER!’ At which discovery he brightened as if he’d received a gift.

‘Oh by the way, how did you get on? Rather mean of us to let you go all alone like that,’ he said, as he hung poised in the open doorway.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘You wanted to stay. And I can look after myself, at my time of life.’

‘We-ell!’ he said, with an American drawl. ‘Maybe you can!’ Then he gave a little laugh. ‘But you SHOULD have seen all those men rehearsing in that bedroom, throwing their arms about, and the toreador lying on the bed like Venus with a fat cigar, listening to her lovers.’

‘I’m glad I didn’t,’ said Kate.

Villiers disappeared with a wicked little laugh. And as she sat her hands trembled with outrage and passion. A-moral! How could one be a-moral, or non-moral, when one’s soul was revolted! How could one be like these Americans, picking over the garbage of sensations, and gobbling it up like carrion birds! At the moment, both Owen and Villiers seemed to her like carrion birds, repulsive.