Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/309

 short fat man Napoleon was. The stars, all the stars, are held up in the heavens so that I may have something to look at just after I've turned out the light and before I get into bed. Christ came and lived beautifully—and died terribly...Christ on his cross...to give my soul a few minutes of pity and wonder. And they who lie in the churchyard, what are they but names for me to read on days when I am too lazy to walk far and have no book with me!'

She the centre of it all, and so soon to be but one more name cut in slate for the lazy to ponder over. 'Lanice Ripley.'

What clothes she had had as a girl, and lovers enough—perhaps too many! She shut her eyes and saw herself in brown velvet that looked like a Spanish portrait, and coral earrings to her shoulders. Could see herself wipe her mouth like a greedy child, shake her earrings, and fall asleep, deep in the furs of the Russian sleigh.

'I have loved to live,' she thought, and prayed with sudden passion, 'O God, let my children be happy, too, and their children, and their children's children, forever and ever, Amen!'