Sometimes it flattered: sometimes it amused:
sometimes it gave a sense of kinship that made him think that, unless
she were a liar she would never have so sympathized with him. He was
unable to trace the fine distinction in veracity between describing a
perfectly fictitious operation performed by oneself, and in recounting
the messages given by the screaming gulls, the whining winds on
Lashnagar.
On one or two things she was certainly caught up sharp. His taste in
books showed a width of divergence between them that nothing could ever
bridge; seeing her with "Fruit Gathering" which the schoolmaster had
lent to her, he asked what it was.
"It's by Tagore," she ventured.
"Tagore? Never heard of him," he said dismissively.
In the fly-leaf of the book was a beautiful portrait of Tagore. She
showed it to him, remarking that he was the Bengali poet.
"Oh, a nigger!" he cried contemptuously, pushing the book on one side.
She frowned at him and shyly suggested that Christ, in that case, shared
Tagore's disadvantage. He laughed loudly. Then she opened the book at
random. She had been impressed with something before going to bed the
night before.
"Listen to this, Louis. I thought I'd like to read it to you," she
said, and read, "'Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to
be fearless in facing them.
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