Читать книгу The Three Lovers онлайн

17 страница из 80

"... Greenlees—Miss Quin," said Monty, leading the stranger from one to the other of his older friends, and making her acquainted with them all.

The smoke-filled atmosphere seemed to come down like a cloud against which she stood fresh and lovely. All the vehemences of colour about him were softened. For that instant Harry saw nothing but the stranger, felt nothing but her hand. He found Miss Quin adorable. She was a reality, a sweet and wayward reality, like a flash of scarlet; and his one desire was to feel her soft hair against his cheek, her cool shoulder, her surrendered lips. The imagination of these contacts was intense. Into Harry's expression of light spirits crept something ever so slightly heavier. He was serious. To him the senses were a cause of seriousness, a cause of the complete oblivion of all that was comic or whimsical.

From behind him came the voice of the young artist, Amy Roberts.

"Hullo, Patricia," she said in greeting.

Patricia! Patricia Quin. So that was the stranger's name. Harry's faint flush subsided. He cooled. The vision had passed. The quick physical imagining was for the present gone, no longer an eager craving. He must talk to her, see her, be with her; but in a few minutes, quite easily and simply. What lay in the future was something which stretched much farther than his immediate vision. To Harry it beckoned as irresistible adventure.