"You spoke, you know, of--of some employment
that--that would suit me."
Thorpe shook himself again, and seemed by an effort
to recall his wandering attention. "Oh yes," he said,
with lethargic vagueness--"I haven't thought it out yet.
I'll let you know--within the week, probably."
With the briefest of nods, he turned and crossed the road.
Walking heavily, with rounded shoulders and hands
plunged deep in his overcoat pockets, he went through
the gateway, and chose a path at random. To the idlers
on the garden benches who took note of him as he passed,
he gave the impression of one struggling with nausea.
To his own blurred consciousness, he could not say
which stirred most vehemently within him, his loathing
for the creature he had fed and bought, or his bitter
self-disgust.
The General, standing with exaggerated exactness upon the doorstep,
had followed with his bulging eyes the receding figure.
He stood still regarding the gateway, mentally summarizing
the events of the day, after the other had vanished.
At last, nestling his chin comfortably into the fur of
his collar, he smiled with self-satisfaction. "After all,"
he said to himself, "there are always ways of making a cad
feel that he is a cad, in the presence of a gentleman."
CHAPTER X
ON a Sunday afternoon, early in February, Thorpe journeyed
with his niece and nephew from Bern to Montreux.
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