Page:No More Parades (Albert & Charles Boni).djvu/203

 Damn it he knew me What's vulgarity to me, Sylvia Tietjens, born Satterthwaite? I do what I want and that's good enough for anyone. Except a priest. Vulgarity! I wonder mother could be so obtuse. If I am vulgar I'm vulgar with a purpose. Then it's not vulgarity. It may be vice. Or viciousness But if you commit a mortal sin with your eyes open it's not vulgarity You chance hell fire for ever Good enough!

The weariness sank over her again and the sense of the father's presence She was back again in Lobscheid, thirty-six hours free of Perowne with the father and her mother in the dim sitting-room, all antlers, candle-lit, with the father's shadow waving over the pitchpine walls and ceilings It was a bewitched place, in the deep forest of Germany. The father himself said it was the last place in Europe to be Christianized. Or perhaps it was never Christianized That was perhaps why those people, the Germans, coming from those deep, devil-infested woods, did all these wickednesses. Or maybe they were not wicked One would never know properly But maybe the father had put a spell on her His words had never been out of her mind, much At the back of her brain, as the saying was

Some man drifted near her and said:

"How do you do, Mrs Tietjens? Who would have thought of seeing you here?"

She answered:

"I have to look after Christopher now and then." He remained hanging over her with a schoolboy grin for a minute, then he drifted away as an object sinks