He used toentertain Gordon with luscious
descriptions. Gordon had a sort of secret feud with theaspidistra. In handing them
to Gordon he dropped one.
He had felt so certain, then, that hewas equal to
it. Gordon made another attempt to get past Flaxman and escape up
thestairs.
The wind blew colder,drying the slime of the
street. Even at sixteen she had old maid written all over her.
More than half of them went unmarried to their
graves.
Gordon had not grasped that fact when he began the
poem;he grasped it now, however. There was a crack on the ceiling thatresembled the
map of Australia. He threw a roly-polyarm affectionately round Gordons shoulders.
She was no doubt acolonels wife, or widow. With a sort of shameful joy he sucked the
soothingsmoke into his lungs. Still, miracles sometimes happen; or, if notmiracles,
accidents. Gordon grew up in the atmosphere of cut-down clothes and stewedneck of
mutton.
They had takenout one of the dog-books and were
examining the photographs. The thin young man suddenly realized that he was alone
and lookedup guiltily.
He watched their fur-coated upper-middle-class
backs go down thestreet. But somehow, almost from the start, LondonPleasures had
gone wrong. He threw a roly-polyarm affectionately round Gordons shoulders. Flaxman
was living apart from his wife at the moment. As Gordon threw away the match his eye
fell uponthe aspidistra in its grass-green pot.
More than half of them went unmarried to their
graves. Gordon, who came home for his midday dinner, paidtwenty-seven and six a
week.