The wine of astonishment - 1919 Author:Mary Hastings Bradley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III FLIGHT He lowered his head and plunged furiously down the streets. He wanted to lose himself in violent motion, to outdistance thought and memo... more »ry. If only the thing had been a dream! A nightmare from which he could wake, still faint and shuddering, but conscious of safety from it in bright, everyday realities. But this nightmare was real and unescapable. His head was not heavy now; it rocked, it spun, it glittered with the dissolving kaleidoscopic views. He saw the door close upon them . . . saw that abominable room. . . . The most horrible thing had been the girl's callous matter-of-factness. On and on he hurried. It was late. A light rain was falling and mechanically he turned up the collar of his coat and pulled his soft felt hat lower over his eyes. He did not look at the pedestrians with whom he nearly collided. There was something in the eyes of those late wanderers that he could not bear to meet. His steps woke sharp echoes by hollow area ways; the streets were growing deserted except where against the curbs some little line of cabs and tired, stiff-legged horses proclaimed a not-distant revelry behind drawn blinds. Sometimes a woman drew out of the shadows and passed close to him, her face thrust out, and always Jim flinched, as if he had been struck, and pressed more hurriedly on, the shamed blood burning hotter and hotter. He saw the girl's bare arm reach towards him. . . .He did not remember how he had got out that door. He had stood at first like a stock by the table, his back to her, yet fearfully aware of her swift, unfastening hands as she had tossed her waist upon the bed. . . . And then she had turned and he had plunged for the door, muttering something . . . there had been a moment when she had barred the way with a snarl of insol...« less