She had no strength, and I no skill, to re-tune the thing.
"But she thanked me in a sort of throaty whisper, and sat for a while
letting the neck of the guitar lie against her shoulder, while her
left hand went up to clasp it and finger it in the old way. And her
right hand lifted itself once or twice towards the sounding-hole, but
dropped back to her lap.
"'You are very good to me,' she said, after some seconds, still in
the same whisper. 'Why is it that you hate Pete so?' Then, as I did
not answer, she went on, 'I am dying, I think. It would be quite
safe to tell me, now.'
"'When two men love one woman--' I began. But she shook her head,
and her eyes accused me. Santa had very beautiful eyes, and in this
agony they were perhaps deeper in colour and more beautiful than
ever. But they had changed, somehow. . . . I cannot explain it but
they recalled another pair of eyes . . . another woman's. . . .
Whose? . . . I don't know! My mother's, maybe. She died, you know,
when I was quite a small boy. . . . Anyway, these eyes quite suddenly
looked at me out of the past--out of my memory, as it were.
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