The Charm School
I was fourteen, and grandfather thinks it would be a good way of getting rid of me; but he's just like a paving-stone I step on every day; I might notice it if it disappeared. What's the use of talking about him, or complaining to grandfather about him? He doesn't matter—nothing matters but you."
If Austin had been a student of the great psychologist whose works he had once recommended to Mr. Johns he would have known that strange passivity which he thought was calm was in reality the conflict within him of two strong and opposing emotions. He stood quiet, aware only of just what it would be like to take her in his arms. She now discovered that by pressing both hands against her chin she could in a measure control it, and she went on:
"It's terrible to feel like this—it eats me up. I used to be rather a silly girl about singers and actors and great people—used to think about them and make myself unhappy, but I wasn't unhappy—I enjoyed it. Oh, Mr. Bevans, I don't enjoy this—it's dreadful—it gives me no rest—I can't eat or sleep and all the time I have that horrid feeling here"—she pressed her hand against her heart—"that you have just before something very exciting happens. I get no
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