"Rinehart, Mary Roberts - The Amazing Interlude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rinehart Mary Roberts)

He banged out cheerfully, whistling as he went down the street. He
stopped whistling, however, at Sara Lee's door. The neighborhood
preserved certain traditions as to a house of mourning. It lowered
its voice in passing and made its calls of condolence in dark clothes
and a general air of gloom. Pianos near by were played only with the
windows closed, and even the milkman leaving his bottles walked on
tiptoe and presented his monthly bill solemnly.

So Harvey stopped whistling, rang the bell apologetically, and - faced a
new and vivid Sara Lee, flushed and with shining eyes, but woefully
frightened.

She told him almost at once. He had only reached the dining room of
the Leete house, which he was explaining had a white wainscoting when
she interrupted him. The ladies of the Methodist Church were going to
collect a certain amount each month to support a soup kitchen as near
the Front as possible.

"Good work!" said Harvey heartily. "I suppose they do get hungry, poor
devils. Now about the dining room - "

"Harvey dear," Sara Lee broke in, "I've not finished. I - I'm going
over to run it."

"You are not!"

"But I am! It's all arranged. It's my plan. They've all wanted to do
something besides giving clothes. They send barrels, and they never
hear from them again, and it's hard to keep interested. But with me
there, writing home and telling them, 'To-day we served soup to this
man, and that man, perhaps wounded.' And - and that sort of thing -
don't you see how interested every one will be? Mrs. Gregory has
promised twenty-five dollars a month, and - "

"You're not going," said Harvey in a flat tone. "That's all. Don't
talk to me about it."

Sara Lee flushed deeper and started again, but rather hopelessly.
There was no converting a man who would not argue or reason, who based
everything on flat refusal.

"But somebody must go," she said with a tightening of her voice.
"Here's Mabel Andrews' letter. Read it and you will understand."

" I don't want to read it."

Nevertheless he took it and read it. He read slowly. He did nothing
quickly except assert his masculine domination. He had all the faults
of his virtues; he was as slow as he was sure, as unimaginative as he