Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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'Not a penny,' she said quickly; 'I have all I need. I live with my memories, you know. I am only so glad for your sake,—after all your hard life out there.'

'The life wasn't hard; it was rather wonderful,' he said simply. 'I liked it.'

'For a time perhaps; but you must have had curious experiences and lived with very rough people in those—lumber camp places you wrote about.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'Simple kind of men, but very decent, very genuine. Few signs of city polish, I admit, but then you know I never cared for frills, Margaret.'

'Frills!' she exclaimed, without any expression on her face. 'Of course not. Still, I am very glad you have left it all. The life must often have been unsuitable and lonely; one always felt that for you. You can't have had any of the society that one's accustomed to.'

'Not of that kind,' he put in hurriedly with a short laugh, 'but of other kinds. I struck a pretty good crowd of men on the whole.'

She turned her face slightly away from him; her eyes, he divined, had been fixed for a moment on his hands. For the first time in his life he realised that they were large and rough and brown. Her own were so pale and dainty—like china hands, glossy and smooth—and the gold bangle on her thin wrist looked as though every second it must slip over her fingers. His own hands disappeared swiftly into the pockets of his coat.