Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/52

 a long time, curled his mustache, poured some perfume upon his shirt front, handkerchief, and coat, rapidly surveyed himself in the mirror, pulled on his yellow gloves, and went out, whistling the march from Faust.

The day dragged on painfully, endlessly, and he waited for the evening. As if attracted by some magnetic power, he hastened at twilight to the house in the Fifth Ward.

(Enough. The reader will permit me to become a dry, businesslike, precise reporter. I have reasons for it. Many people, honest, respectable people, pastors of pious souls, virtuous ladies, will perhaps bid farewell to the author and this, his story. I should not like that, for I have in my head some six thousand verses more, and they echo within me and press me on,—may I not be so neglected as that famous man in the fable, who whispered his woe into the bosom of a hollow old willow.)