"If she should apply here," Duge said, rising and drawing on his gloves,
"assist her in any way and let me know at once. She must be getting," he
continued, "rather short of money. You can advance her whatever sum she
asks for, and I will make it good."
Phineas Duge walked out into the sunlight and drove away in his
automobile. Was it the glaring light, he wondered, the perfume of the
flowers, the evidences on every side of an easier and less strenuous
life, which were accountable for a certain depression, a slackening of
interests which certainly seemed to come over him that afternoon as he
drove back to the hotel. If he could have summarized his thoughts
afterwards, he would have scoffed at them, as a grown man might laugh at
a toy which a lunatic had offered him. Yet it is certain that the empty
place by his side was filled more than once during that brief ride. He
looked into the faces of the women and girls who streamed along the
pavements with a certain half-eager curiosity, as though he expected to
find a familiar face amongst them, a pale oval face, with quivering lips
and lustrous appealing eyes--eyes which had come into his thoughts more
often lately than he would have cared to admit.
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