Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/86

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lines of least resistance—but we can assume them again at any moment. We can be twenty at one hour and sixty the next. And all this Magdalen Roberts is going to tell for money: the gentle art of making faces! . . . Campaspe smiled as she skipped a page or two. . . . Edith appeared to be writing about that strange, Spanish sect of flagilants, the Penitentes. She stood in the Church of the Marada. We peeked into an inner chapel, so the letter continued, and caught a glimpse of the delightful place—white-washed walls so splotched with recent blood-splashing that they gave a dark impression—a little wagon with solid wooden wheels on which was seated a life-sized skeleton, laughing, bearing bow and arrow, the arrow poised, the bow drawn. On the floor were great heaps of shiny chains, that the Penitentes rattle as they sing and whip, and the curious instrument to drown the howls, which gives out a terrific sound like a Chinese rattle. We . . .

The telephone tinkled. Campaspe, after some argument with the telephone company, had contrived to have an English instrument installed, so that it was possible for her to grasp both receiver and transmitter in one hand without altering her half-recumbent position. Paulet was on the wire, Paulet in great excitement, Paulet with news, Paulet with the desire to lunch with her. Paulet in this mood was almost a forgotten experience for