Читать книгу The Saint of the Speedway онлайн

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She turned abruptly into the darkening room. Her gaze took in the figure of her mother still bowed under her load of grief. Then it passed to the thick packet of notes lying where she had left them on the table. They represented the limits of their worldly fortune. They were all that stood between them and the starvation Booker had originally designed for them. Her eyes lit, and her spirit suddenly buoyed.

But she turned away and passed quickly into the lean-to sleeping room that was hers. What was her purpose was of little concern. Her woman’s mind was working swiftly, almost feverishly. She stood for a while contemplating the trifling wardrobe of gowns hanging under a cotton curtain. She examined each garment quickly, urgently. Then, with a gesture that was half impatient, she permitted the curtain to fall back over them and she moved across to the small mirror before which she was accustomed to brush her hair.

Here she stood for a while studying the features it reflected. The message it passed her was for her ears alone. Maybe it told her some of those things which everybody but she was fully aware of. Maybe she only obtained a measure of reassurance. Whatever happened in those long, silent moments she turned away at last, and something seemed to have transformed her. Her eyes were alight. Her shapely lips were firmly set, and she passed into the living-room beyond. Her whole manner was that of one whose mind is irrevocably made up.