An immortal soul Author:William Hurrell Mallock 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 THE two, on entering, found themselves in a small, dim lobby, into which, through the thin crevice left by a door ajar, a sound of voices penetrat... more »ed from some room within. The girl took her friend's arm in a manner which invited him to listen. The voices were two in number, and the words uttered by each were calculated to arrest attention. "Peter," said the first voice—"oh, my love, thou art fair! Thou hast dove's eyes within thy locks. Sit there on your altar and accept of our evening sacrifice." "James," said the second voice — "darling James, come here! Why does my Jemmie go about pretending to be a dog when he knows quite well that he really is a beautiful brown lizard?" "Wait!" Miss Vivian whispered. "I'll go in and announce you." He heard her entrance greeted by exclamations of "Nest!" which were followed first by a murmur and then by a short silence. Then the door reopened, and Miss Vivian's voice said: "Come!" The next moment he was in a room, large, low, encumbered with untidy tables, and surrounded with cupboards and bookcases, which had just begun to flicker in the firelight. From a chair by one of the tables, which was laden with a substantial tea, a lady with a smiling and rather eager face had risen, and was freeing herself from the embraces of a brown, oblong dachshund. Two boys, or youths, were in the act of rising also; while enthroned and purring loudly on a large box against the wall a magnificent Angora cat, with a dish of scraps before it, was wiping a whiskered cheek with a large, buttery paw. Miss Vivian introduced her friend without any attempt at ceremony. "Here is Nina," she said; "here is Oswald; and that over there is Mr. Hugo." The three exhibited a sense of having somehow been taken at unawares. Mr. Hugo in particul...« less