The Moving Finger Read Online Free PDF

wide open.”
    â€œI’ve had a shock,” I said. “I have been transplanted to Ilium and back again.”
    â€œDo you know who that is?” I added, indicating a retreating back that was swimming gracefully away.
    Peering after the girl Joanna said that it was the Symmingtons’ nursery governess.
    â€œIs that what struck you all of a heap?” she asked. “She’s good-looking, but a bit of a wet fish.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “Just a nice kind girl. And I’d been thinking her Aphrodite.”
    Joanna opened the door of the car and I got in.
    â€œIt’s funny, isn’t it?” she said. “Some people have lots of looks and absolutely no S.A. That girl has. It seems such a pity.”
    I said that if she was a nursery governess it was probably just as well.

Three
    I
    T hat afternoon we went to tea with Mr. Pye.
    Mr. Pye was an extremely ladylike plump little man, devoted to his petit point chairs, his Dresden shepherdesses and his collection of bric-à-brac. He lived at Prior’s Lodge in the grounds of which were the ruins of the old Priory.
    Prior’s Lodge was certainly a very exquisite house and under Mr. Pye’s loving care it showed to its best advantage. Every piece of furniture was polished and set in the exact place most suited to it. The curtains and cushions were of exquisite tone and colour, and of the most expensive silks.
    It was hardly a man’s house, and it did strike me that to live there would be rather like taking up one’s abode in a period room at a museum. Mr. Pye’s principal enjoyment in life was taking people round his house. Even those completely insensitive to their surroundings could not escape. Even if you were so hardened as to consider the essentials of living a radio, a cocktail bar, a bath anda bed surrounded by the necessary walls. Mr. Pye did not despair of leading you to better things.
    His small plump hands quivered with sensibility as he described his treasures, and his voice rose to a falsetto squeak as he narrated the exciting circumstances under which he had brought his Italian bedstead home from Verona.
    Joanna and I being both fond of antiquities and of period furniture, met with approval.
    â€œIt is really a pleasure, a great pleasure, to have such an acquisition to our little community. The dear good people down here, you know, so painfully bucolic—not to say provincial. They don’t know anything. Vandals—absolute vandals! And the inside of their houses—it would make you weep, dear lady, I assure you it would make you weep. Perhaps it has done so?”
    Joanna said that she hadn’t gone quite as far as that.
    â€œBut you see what I mean? They mix things so terribly! I’ve seen with my own eyes a most delightful little Sheraton piece—delicate, perfect—a collector’s piece, absolutely—and next to it a Victorian occasional table, or quite possibly a fumed oak revolving bookcase—yes, even that— fumed oak. ”
    He shuddered—and murmured plaintively:
    â€œWhy are people so blind? You agree—I’m sure you agree, that beauty is the only thing worth living for.”
    Hypnotized by his earnestness, Joanna said, yes, yes, that was so.
    â€œThen why,” demanded Mr. Pye, “do people surround themselves with ugliness?”
    Joanna said it was very odd.
    â€œOdd? It’s criminal! That’s what I call it—criminal! And theexcuses they give! They say something is comfortable. Or that it is quaint. Quaint! Such a horrible word.”
    â€œThe house you have taken,” went on Mr. Pye, “Miss Emily Barton’s house. Now that is charming, and she has some quite nice pieces. Quite nice. One or two of them are really first class. And she has taste, too—although I’m not quite so sure of that as I was. Sometimes, I am afraid, I think it’s really sentiment. She likes to keep things as they