THE STEADFAST HEART
with him—yet always hidden from the greedily prying eyes of Rainbow…. Nightly he prayed that she might be dead….
He did not resent the curiosity of Rainbow, for he knew his people. It was their nature to be curious, and their right. They lived to themselves on an island of humanity, dependent upon the sensations produced by their own soil for the interest which other and larger and more artificial communities find in diverse matters. Curious they were, yet, in their way, kindly, generous, self-sacrificing folk. Whatever prying they might be guilty of, whatever brash questions they might be urged to ask, he condoned because underneath these manifestations lay a quick and abiding sympathy…. A practical sympathy. Rainbow did not send flowers to a home bereaved of a loved member—it baked bread and sent wholesome loaves, it baked pies, it sent by awestruck children cakes upon which the fine arts of the kitchen had been lavished…. Rainbow was a Jekyll and Hyde…. It was in the nature of its life that it should be so.
The old gentleman paced stiffly to his banking office, retired to his private room where hung the oil portrait of his father, and closed the door after him. Before his desk he sat inactive, hands in lap, eyes fixed upon the clean blotting pad. Once, twice, in indecision, he reached toward a
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