Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/167

 He was tired. That long motor ride had worn his nerves. And then the discovery of that obscene but beautiful statue had been disturbing. A thing like that was better hidden forever in the dark earth of that ancient garden. It stirred up the demons.

"I am growing old," he thought. "Yet she seems as young as ever. She is a remarkable woman."

She had not tricked him. He knew well enough why she had been in such haste. Had he not known her for nearly thirty years, better perhaps than any man, better even than any of her lovers, for there was a side of her known to him which they would never know? She was a woman, he thought, born out of her time, a woman who might have been a grande amoureuse, or a great courtesan. She was always in haste, always unsatisfied, like a flame, always seeking, seeking, seeking something. What could it have been? Love, perhaps, or something more than that, if indeed there were anything greater than that. Perhaps she had been seeking always a man whom she could find worthy of her, to receive all that she had to give. Such a man might have saved her, but it was too late now. She would never find him. She was growing old and to seek love when one was old was to be ridiculous. The thought hurt him, as it had hurt him many times during the past year or two, when he had heard her name mentioned in jest, when people had told stories against her. Women did not like her and that was natural, but men had come of late to talk of her. It was like an audience of dolts witnessing a great play which they had not the capacity to understand. A whole life wasted. They did not know her as he