Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Fair Rosamond's Choice The terrace under Nadier's rosesdotted with little tables covered with napery, silver, crystal, and china, surrounded with laughing, chattering f eastersthe terrace was no longer a scene out of a comedy of the lighter side of Parisian life. . . . Tragedy, pale and awe-inspiring in her ink-black mantle and purple chiton, had stepped across the gravel in her gold-buckled leather buskins, to offer to the girlish bride a piece of human porcelain, prinked in the height of the fashion, and lovelywith her wild-rose cheeks and little uptilted nose, her floss-silk hair and wide, dark, lustrous deer-eyesFair Rosamond's choice, the dagger or the bowl. . . . "Yesyes. . . . It is the ugliness of the thing! . . ." The little mouth was pulled awry as though it had sipped of verjuice. The tiny hands knotted themselves convulsively, and the colour fled in terror from her face. "The grotesque ugliness. . . . And the"the last two words came as though a pang had wrung them from the pale lips " the painthe awful pain! And besidesmy mother died when I was born!" Margot's voice was a fluttering, appealing whisper; her great eyes were dilated and wild with terror. "Perhaps that is why I am so deadly afraid"she caught her breath"but there are heaps, heaps, heaps of married women who fearthatequally! And they arrange to. escape itI don't know how! . . . For I knewnothing when I married you! . . ." She lifted her great eyes to Franky's, and he realised that it had been so, actually. "I've been ashamed ever to confess that I wasignorant about these things! . . . I've talked alanguageamongst other womenthat I didn't understand! ..." There are moments when even the shallow-brained become clairvoyant. Franky's love for her made him see clear. He l... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.