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The Ball and the Cross by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
page 287 of 309 (92%)
could have known that his soul was in the seventh heaven of
ecstasy. He did not think; he did not even very definitely
desire. He merely wallowed in memories, chiefly in material
memories; words said with a certain cadence or trivial turns of
the neck or wrist. Into the middle of his stationary and
senseless enjoyment were thrust abruptly the projecting elbow and
the projecting red beard of Turnbull. MacIan stepped back a
little, and the soul in his eyes came very slowly to its windows.
When James Turnbull had the glittering sword-point planted upon
his breast he was in far less danger. For three pulsating seconds
after the interruption MacIan was in a mood to have murdered his
father.

And yet his whole emotional anger fell from him when he saw
Turnbull's face, in which the eyes seemed to be bursting from the
head like bullets. All the fire and fragrance even of young and
honourable love faded for a moment before that stiff agony of
interrogation.

"Are you hurt, Turnbull?" he asked, anxiously.

"I am dying," answered the other quite calmly. "I am in the quite
literal sense of the words dying to know something. I want to
know what all this can possibly mean."

MacIan did not answer, and he continued with asperity: "You are
still thinking about that girl, but I tell you the whole thing is
incredible. She's not the only person here. I've met the fellow
Wilkinson, whose yacht we lost. I've met the very magistrate you
were hauled up to when you broke my window. What can it
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