Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/171

 was perhaps on his side smiling at the antics of all the others.

And suddenly he thought with shame of what he had written on the first empty white page of the Thomas-à-Kempis he had given Anna so long ago.

He had written that. He who could have saved her.

What did it all mean, what did it all matter? There was Anna a little way off with Oreste Fuenterrabía searching, searching for what Oreste Fuenterrabía could never give her, and what she could never find now. Soon they would both be dead. Ten more years. Twenty more years. The sooner, the better now for Anna. She was not made to be old. For himself it did not matter. Nothing could happen to him now. He was tired tonight and he had yet to deal with Fulco and all his stupidity, to keep Fulco from making a fool of himself. Fulco, who would not see that the world was what it was and that Christ had come too soon. There were those who believed that Jesus would come again. Perhaps when he came again the world would not reject him—this world of priests and preachers, of statesmen and barterers and politicians and cheats