>>> YOU ARE VIEWING A 200 LINE SAMPLE OF EBOOK# E07150 <<< TITLE: THE INCOMPLETE AMORIST AUTHOR: E. NESBIT EBOOK: E07150 (O'Briens Book Cellar) LANGUAGE: ENGLISH THE INCOMPLETE AMORIST By E. NESBIT Illustrated by CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD 1906 To Richard Reynolds and Justus Miles Forman "Faire naitre un desir, le nourrir, le developper, le grandir, le satisfaire, c'est un poeme tout entier." --_Balzac_. CONTENTS BOOK I. THE GIRL Chapter I. The Inevitable Chapter II. The Irresistible Chapter III. Voluntary Chapter IV. Involuntary Chapter V. The Prisoner Chapter VI. The Criminal Chapter VII. The Escape BOOK II. THE MAN Chapter VIII. The One and the Other Chapter IX. The Opportunity Chapter X. Seeing Life Chapter XI. The Thought Chapter XII. The Rescue Chapter XIII. Contrasts Chapter XIV. Renunciation BOOK III. THE OTHER WOMAN Chapter XV. On Mount Parnassus Chapter XVI. "Love and Tupper" Chapter XVII. Interventions Chapter XVIII. The Truth Chapter XIX. The Truth with a Vengeance Chapter XX. Waking-up Time BOOK IV. THE OTHER MAN Chapter XXI. The Flight Chapter XXII. The Lunatic Chapter XXIII. Temperatures Chapter XXIV. The Confessional Chapter XXV. The Forest Chapter XXVI. The Miracle Chapter XXVII. The Pink Silk Story Chapter XXVIII. "And so--" PEOPLE OF THE STORY Eustace Vernon. The Incomplete Amorist Betty Desmond The Girl The Rev. Cecil Underwood Her Step-Father Miss Julia Desmond Her Aunt Robert Temple The Other Man Lady St. Craye The Other Woman Miss Voscoe The Art Student Madame Chevillon. The Inn-Keeper at Crez Paula Conway A Soul in Hell Mimi Chantal A Model Village Matrons, Concierges, Art Students, Etc. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "'Oh, what a pity,' said Betty from the heart, 'that we aren't introduced now!'" "'Ah, don't be cross!' she said." "Betty stared at him coldly." "Betty looked nervously around--the scene was agitatingly unfamiliar." "Unfinished, but a disquieting likeness." "'No, thank you: it's all done now.'" "On the further arm of the chair sat, laughing also, a very pretty young woman." "The next morning brought him a letter." Book 1.--The Girl CHAPTER I. THE INEVITABLE. "No. The chemises aren't cut out. I haven't had time. There are enough shirts to go on with, aren't there, Mrs. James?" said Betty. "We can make do for this afternoon, Miss, but the men they're getting blowed out with shirts. It's the children's shifts as we can't make shift without much longer." Mrs. James, habitually doleful, punctuated her speech with sniffs. "That's a joke, Mrs. James," said Betty. "How clever you are!" "I try to be what's fitting," said Mrs. James, complacently. "Talk of fitting," said Betty, "If you like I'll fit on that black bodice for you, Mrs. Symes. If the other ladies don't mind waiting for the reading a little bit." "I'd as lief talk as read, myself," said a red-faced sandy-haired woman; "books ain't what they was in my young days." "If it's the same to you, Miss," said Mrs. Symes in a thick rich voice, "I'll not be tried on afore a room full. If we are poor we can all be clean's what I say, and I keeps my unders as I keeps my outside. But not before persons as has real imitation lace on their petticoat bodies. I see them when I was a-nursing her with her fourth. No, Miss, and thanking you kindly, but begging your pardon all the same." "Don't mention it," said Betty absently. "Oh, Mrs. Smith, you can't have lost your thimble already. Why what's that you've got in your mouth?" "So it is!" Mrs. Smith's face beamed at the gratifying coincidence. "It always was my habit, from a child, to put things there for safety." "These cheap thimbles ain't fit to put in your mouth, no more than coppers," said Mrs. James, her mouth full of pins. "Oh, nothing hurts you if you like it," said Betty recklessly. She had been reading the works of Mr. G.K. Chesterton. A shocked murmur arose. "Oh, Miss, what about the publy kows?" said Mrs. Symes heavily. The others nodded acquiescence. "Don't you think we might have a window open?" said Betty. The May sunshine beat on the schoolroom windows. The room, crowded with the stout members of the "Mother's Meeting and Mutual Clothing Club," was stuffy, unbearable. A murmur arose far more shocked than the first. "I was just a-goin' to say why not close the door, that being what doors is made for, after all," said Mrs. Symes. "I feel a sort of draught a-creeping up my legs as it is." The door was shut. "You can't be too careful," said the red-faced woman; "we never know what a chill mayn't bring forth. My cousin's sister-in-law, she had twins, and her aunt come in and says she, 'You're a bit stuffy here, ain't you?' and with that she opens the window a crack,--not meaning no harm, Miss,--as it might be you. And within a year that poor unfortunate woman she popped off, when least expected. Gas ulsters, the doctor said. Which it's what you call chills, if you're a doctor and can't speak plain." "My poor grandmother come to her end the same way," said Mrs. Smith, "only with her it was the Bible reader as didn't shut the door through being so set on shewing off her reading. And my granny, a clot of blood went to her brain, and her brain went to her head and she was a corpse inside of fifty minutes." Every woman in the room was waiting, feverishly alert, for the pause that should allow her to begin her own detailed narrative of disease. Mrs. James was easily first in the competition. "Them quick deaths," she said, "is sometimes a blessing in disguise to both parties concerned. My poor husband--years upon years he lingered, and he had a bad leg--talk of bad legs, I wish you could all have seen it," she added generously. "Was it the kind that keeps all on a-breaking out?" asked Mrs. Symes hastily, "because my youngest brother had a leg that nothing couldn't stop. Break out it would do what they might. I'm sure the bandages I've took off him in a morning--" Betty clapped her hands. It was the signal that the reading was going to begin, and the matrons looked at her resentfully. What call had people to start reading when the talk was flowing so free and pleasant? Betty, rather pale, began: "This is a story about a little boy called <<< END OF SAMPLE... (THE FULL EBOOK HAS 515423 TOTAL CHARACTERS) >>>