And I tell you that these army officers and the
bedizened women, with their wine and cigarettes, with their
devil's calling-cards and their jewels, with their hell-lighted
talk of the sacrilegious follies of socialism and art and
horse-racing, O my brothers, it was all but a cloak for looking
upon one another to lust after one another. Rotten is this
empire, and shall fall when our soldiers seek flirtation instead
of kneeling in prayer like the iron men of Cromwell."
Istra.... Card-playing.... Talk of socialism and art. Mr.
Wrenn felt very guilty. Istra.... Smoking and drinking
wine.... But his moral reflections brought the picture of Istra
the more clearly before him--the persuasive warmth of her
perfect fingers; the curve of her backward-bent throat as she
talked in her melodious voice of all the beautiful things made
by the wise hands of great men.
He dashed out of the restaurant. No matter what happened, good
or bad, he had to see her. While he was climbing to the upper
deck of a bus he was trying to invent an excuse for seeing
her.
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