"Excuse me," said Hirst, rising from his chair directly he had sat down.
He went into the drawing-room, and returned with a cushion which he
placed carefully upon his seat.
"Rheumatism," he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.
"The result of the dance?" Helen enquired.
"Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic," Hirst stated.
He bent his wrist back sharply. "I hear little pieces of chalk grinding
together!"
Rachel looked at him. She was amused, and yet she was respectful; if
such a thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh, and
the lower part to check its laughter.
Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.
"You like this?" he asked in an undertone.
"No, I don't like it," she replied. She had indeed been trying all
the afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory which she had
perceived at first had faded, and, read as she would, she could not
grasp the meaning with her mind.
"It goes round, round, round, like a roll of oil-cloth," she hazarded.
Evidently she meant Hewet alone to hear her words, but Hirst demanded,
"What d'you mean?"
She was instantly ashamed of her figure of speech, for she could not
explain it in words of sober criticism.
"Surely it's the most perfect style, so far as style goes, that's ever
been invented," he continued. "Every sentence is practically perfect,
and the wit--"
"Ugly in body, repulsive in mind," she thought, instead of thinking
about Gibbon's style.
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