The Man of Promise - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1916. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... XVIII For nearly a week Margaret Moore had been unusually silent. She had lost her buoyancy. She obeyed West without hesitation, quietly and resignedly. She did not react to his irritations but accepted them with calm and equanimity. During the first few days of her saturnine tractability West regarded her condition as a passing mood. She was high strung, and he thought that the psychological pendulum had temporarily swung to another extreme. He said little, working ardently during the day, and reading and writing during the evenings. He began to see the end of his present labours. He needed another year's training. Then he would be ready to throw himself into the game single-handed. He wrote to Seminoff: "Everyone who aspires to high literary achievement must learn to write. There are no instinctive writers. Style must be mastered like a difficult trade. Here I am acquiring much knowledge, but I am not ready yet. By this time next year perhaps my pen will not seem heavy or clumsy." On the very night he wrote the words Margaret Moore expressed a fear to him which opened up a heretofore uncharted region of his nature, a region of dread and uncertainty, filled with indistinguishable spectres and fraught with sinister possibilities. She had withheld the information from him for a week, hoping it might prove untrue. But there was little doubt now that she was pregnant. She accepted her condition sullenly, and when she apprised West of the fact there was a note of accusation in her voice. His mind, sensitive and imaginative, received the news with its full force of disaster. It unnerved him. It crowded everything else from his thoughts. He lay awake at night conscious of some terrifying catastrophe hanging over him. Coupled with the fearful anxiety which the...