Читать книгу Sister Teresa онлайн

46 страница из 85

"Thank you, Monsignor; and be sure nothing will happen to me in America. In six months I shall be back."

Evelyn went away to Mr. Enterwick, the solicitor Monsignor recommended, and the following month she sailed for America.

ssss1

Her pictures and furniture were on view at Christie's in the early spring, and all Owen's friends met each other in the rooms and on the staircase.

The pictures were to be sold on Saturday, the furniture, china, and enamels on the following Monday.

"The pictures don't matter so much, although her own portrait is going to be sold. But the furniture! Dear God, look at that brute trying the springs of the sofa where I have sat so often with her. And there is the chair on which I used to sit listening to her when she sang. And her piano—why, my God, she is selling her piano!—What is to become of that woman? A singer who sells her piano!"

"My dear friend, I suppose she had to sell everything or nothing?"

"But she'll have to buy another piano, and she might have kept the one I gave her. It is extraordinary how religion hardens the heart, Harding. Do you see that fellow, a great nose, lumpy shoulders, trousers too short for him, a Hebrew barrel of grease—Rosental. You know him; I bought that clock from him. He's looking into it to see if anything has been broken, if it is in as good condition as when he sold it. The brutes have all joined the 'knock-out,' and there——"