Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/281

 in the evening, with a wood fire, a book, a piano, and a lamp—it was company enough, yet it was solitude itself. It was like Omar's shady tree and loaf of bread and jug of wine and book of verse."

"And thou," added Thorndyke, under his breath. He was watching her with a silent rapture which possessed him on meeting her after an absence. She surely had the softest and sweetest voice in the world, and those charming tricks of pronunciation—she called solitude "solee-tude" and piano "pe-arno," and was quite unconscious of it, and bitterly denied any difference between her speech and Thorndyke's. Constance was conscious of the adoring look in Thorndyke's eyes; she had heard the one suggestive word; perhaps it was that which caused a happy smile to flicker for a moment on her lips, revealing the faint, elusive dimple in her cheek, but she continued as if she had neither heard, nor seen, nor understood.

"I have heard about the solitude there is in crowds, but I never could find it so. I am so dreadfully sociable—Southern and Creole French, you know—that I always find troops of friends and