Dorothy Canfield

“ Before I married him in Paris I was free, I had a good home, friends, my work—I can teach music better than he!—art, all Paris for my pleasure." On the last words her voice broke a little. "A letter from Paris is like a cut from a sword now. I sit here and look out on the black soot falling, and I see Paris, the clean, gray little Rue de Cluny where we lived with the green of the old garden at the end." The effort to keep the heart-beats out of her voice throbbed all over her now. "My youth is gone, and I have but a little time more. ”

“ There came a rush from outside, the smell of violets, and a rich voice exclaiming, in breathless reproach:
"Ah, naughty Camille, you didn't want to see me! You are so slow to open!"
From among the dangling tails of fur where the embrace of the tall girl held her, Mrs. Clifton's sweet, high voice rose in indignant self-justification. ”

“ At home he was always so lofty and above small things. I blamed my sister Anne because she didn't appreciate him. She was always moody and fretful often, even when he was talking most beautifully to her. And so I grew up till I was eighteen—"
She stopped short, her nostrils quivering, her mouth set in a bitter line.
"Camille, I can't tell you—even now I find I can't speak of it—how I found out. little by little, that he was cruel to my sister—oh, abominable! And then, one evening, Anne was out late with a sick person, and I had gone into the garden to try and get away from him. ”

“ Any one can cheat him, any woman of the street lead him away. He drinks, or would if I did not always stand between him and it; for never can I let him out of my sight, like a naughty child. I keep him well by cooking just the right things for him, I keep him amused. I make him go to bed, I make him get up and work ”

“ The girl sprang to her feet and threw off her wraps as she talked.
"Why do I want to see you, little Camille? Because you are so perversely happy with no reason for it—because you are the only happy person I have ever known, and because you've made me over by being so. Petite chérie, do you remember that first day when I came wandering here looking for a first violin for our stupid theatricals? Think! ”

“ Father and mother live quite apart, you know, as if they had never been married, though they are friendly enough at meal-times, as they never see each other anywhere else. I saw that whenever people tried to do more than that, they failed ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1958, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 64 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”