When William Came by Saki
page 30 of 173 (17%)
page 30 of 173 (17%)
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captivating suggestion of slyness and furtive joyousness running through
it. He rose and walked across to the window, opening it a little wider. He listened till the last notes had died away. "What is that tune they have just played?" he asked. "You'll hear it often enough," said the doctor. "A Frenchman writing in the Matin the other day called it the 'National Anthem of the fait accompli.'" CHAPTER IV: "ES IST VERBOTEN" Yeovil wakened next morning to the pleasant sensation of being in a household where elaborate machinery for the smooth achievement of one's daily life was noiselessly and unceasingly at work. Fever and the long weariness of convalescence in indifferently comfortable surroundings had given luxury a new value in his eyes. Money had not always been plentiful with him in his younger days; in his twenty-eighth year he had inherited a fairly substantial fortune, and he had married a wealthy woman a few months later. It was characteristic of the man and his breed that the chief use to which he had put his newly-acquired wealth had been in seizing the opportunity which it gave him for indulging in unlimited travel in wild, out-of-the-way regions, where the comforts of life were meagrely represented. Cicely occasionally accompanied him to the |
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