Читать книгу Hands Up! онлайн

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As for the interior it had for me no attraction, and yet I was about to sit in an examination in a grand endeavour to achieve that for which I had no desire. So I saw myself, if not a "greenery yallery, oh such a good young man" as—in the phrase of old women—a "good son." Yes—there is no doubt that youth is histrionic.

You will readily understand that a young man of such calibre as this had his calf-love; and if the lady smiled, at times, a little on the sardonic side, I do not know that the young man was any the worse. He is the last, at the time, to perceive the sardonic dimples at the edges of his idol's mouth. He will see to it that she remains for him the Holy Grail, the Light that never was on land or sea. She has her amusement, he his ideal; and I think these things are well.

I think women like things to be a little secretive; an apple, if it be but a crab apple, is preferable to the luscious pear. Really, I do not think, looking back on that idyll from the sanity of middle age, that the secrecy of our meetings was essential; but I do know, whatever the cause, My Lady, with very solemn eyes, suggested to me the advisability of not calling too frequently at her home. I remember that, at the time, I used to marvel much how Fate cast us together, how frequently we, as it were bumped into one another, and I used to take it as a sign that Fate smiled upon us.