Page:The Two Women (1910).djvu/49

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THE TWO WOMEN

phasized by congested floods of light, the cunningest spoil of the interiors. There were few passers, and of this Lorison was glad. He was not of the world. For a long time he had touched his fellow man only at the gear of a bevelled cog-wheel—at right angles, and upon a different axis. He had dropped into a distinctly new orbit. The stroke of ill fortune had acted upon him, in effect, as a blow delivered upon the apex of a certain ingenious toy, the musical top, which, when thus buffeted whilst spinning, gives forth, with scarcely retarded motion, a complete change of key and chord.

Thus he had moved for a year under the dominion of his peripheral soul, contemplating life from a new point of view.

Strolling along the pacific avenue, he experienced a singular, supernatural calm, accompanied by an unusual activity of brain. Reflecting upon recent affairs, he assured

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