"I
can't interfere, son, with the way the agent manages the property," he
answered, "but, of course, if you have discovered a peculiarly
distressing case--if it is an object of charity--"
He paused abruptly in amazement, for Stephen was laughing, laughing in a
way, as Mrs. Culpeper remarked afterward, that nobody had ever even
thought of laughing before the whole world had become demoralized.
"Damn charity!" he exclaimed hilariously. "I beg your pardon, Mother,
but if you only knew how inexpressibly funny it is!" Then the laughter
stopped, and a wistful look came into his eyes, for beyond the broken
walls he saw Patty Vetch in her red cape, and around her stretched the
wind-swept roads of that hidden country.
A minute later, as he left the room, his mother's eyes followed him
anxiously. "Poor boy, we must bear with him," she said in melting
maternal accents.
CHAPTER XIII
CORINNA WONDERS
After a winter of Italian skies spring had come in a night. It was a
morning in April, blue and soft as a cloud, with a roving fragrance of
lilacs and hyacinths in the air.
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