That Which Hath Wings a Novel of the Day

n her ink-black mantle and purple chiton, had stepped across the gravel in her gold-buckled leather buskins, to offer to the girlish bride ?a piece of human porcelain, prinked in the height of the fashion, and lovely?with her wild-rose cheeks and little uptilted nose, her floss-silk hair and wide, dark, lustrous deer-eyes?Fair Rosamond's choice, the dagger or the bowl. . . . "Yes?yes. . . . It is the ugliness of the thing! . . ." The little mouth was pulled awry as though it had sipped of verjuice. The tiny hands knotted themselves convulsively, and the colour fled in terror from her face. "The grotesque ugliness. . . . And the"?the last two words came as though a pang had wrung them from the pale lips? " the pain?the awful pain! And besides?my mother died when I was born!" Margot's voice was a fluttering, appealing whisper; her great eyes were dilated and wild with terror. "Perhaps that is why I am so deadly afraid"?she caught her breath?"but there are heaps, heaps, heaps of married women who fear?that?equally! And they arrange to. escape it?I don't know how! . . . For I knew?nothing ?when I married you! . . ." She lifted her great eyes to Franky's, and he realised that it had been so, actually. "I've been ashamed ever to confess that I was?ignorant about these things! . . . I've talked alanguage?amongst other women?that I didn't understand! ..." There are moments when even the shallow-brained become clairvoyant. Franky's love for her made him see clear. He l... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.