Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/240

remember him? Yer don't? Well—I do! Yes, sir, I do! And d'yer know why? D'yer wanta know?"

She spoke through her teeth. Her words clicked and broke like dropping icicles.

She rushed up to her husband. She gripped his shoulders with frantic hands. She forced him to turn and look up until she could stare straight into his black, oblique eyes, her own eyes blazing fire and hate.

"Not that ye'll care! Not that ye'll give a damn! But—yer might as well know. Me and young Nag—me and him. …"

She burst into gurgling, hysterical laughter that shook her whole body.

"Me and him—me and him. …"

He rose; trembled.

Marie Na Liu's last words had staggered him like a blow between the eyes.

He tried to control himself.

Peace, perfect, exquisite! The peace of the soul, calm, passionless, serene, in a world of illusions—ropes of illusions—ropes of sand. …

His thoughts groped, slipped.

Peace—the Buddha's peace—the end of his soul's pilgrimage. But—and an extraordinary revulsion caught him, flashed upon him like a sheet of black fire—what did it matter—his soul's pilgrimage? What did anything matter, except—

Marie Na Liu!

Golden-haired sloe-eyed. … Her little feet had crushed his heart. …

He felt a terrible weakness in his knees, and a catch in his throat. For a tenth part of a second his memory turned back. He thought of a day, a spring day. He