A Sleeping Memory Author:Edward Phillips Oppenheim 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 IV It was an ordinary pleasant little comedy of everyday life, brightly written and epigrammatic, leading up, however, to a great situation towards th... more »e climax of the third act. Eleanor sat quite still, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, drinking in long draughts of delicious enjoyment. It was a chapter from the life for which her heart was faint with longing. Here was everyday existence without labor or vulgarity. She was too absorbed to torture herself with contrasts. With an abandon which was in itself a luxury, she gave herself wholly up to the delight of the moment. During the intervals the glamour lasted and sustained her. She chatted brightly to her companions, and to spare herself the pain of any jarring note virtually absorbed the conversation. Ada beamed all over with pleasure. She was delighted that her friend should vindicate the superiority which she had bespoken for her. The two young men were amazed. Henry, with the unerring instinct of a born shopwalker, and Mr. Chadwick, who despite his innate vulgarity was gifted with perceptions, recognized that touch of something outside their lives with which Eleanor was certainly endowed. The former became curiously silent, the latter lost a great part of his offensive overconfidence. The first two intervals passed almost gayly. Then the supreme moment of the play arrived.The woman of fashion who had chattered her way lightly through a couple of acts found herself face to face with one of the great realities of life. Her well- bred indifference fell away from her like a mask. She stood upon the stage, a white-faced, trembling human being, looking with wide-open eyes which took no account of visible things into a future which the next few seconds must decide for her. Slowly her lips moved; the words came o...« less