Blaire questions
him--"Tell me, Sir Rump, this horse-box--is it the dentist's?"
"It's written up there," replies Sambremeuse--a little corpulent
man, clean, close-shaven, and his chin starch-white. "If you can't
see it, you don't want the dentist to look after your grinders, you
want the vet to clean your eyesight."
Blaire comes nearer and scrutinizes the establishment. "It's a queer
shop," he says. He goes nearer yet, draws back, hesitates to risk
his gums in that carriage. At last he decides, puts a foot on the
stair, and disappears inside the caravan.
We continue our walk, and turn into a footpath where are high, dusty
bushes and the noises are subdued. The sunshine blazes everywhere;
it heats and roasts the hollow of the way, spreading blinding and
burning whiteness in patches, and shimmers in the sky of faultless
blue.
At the first turning, almost before we had heard the light grating
of a footstep, we are face to face with Eudoxie!
Lamuse utters a deep exclamation. Perhaps he fancies once more that
she is looking for him, and believes that she is the gift of his
destiny. He goes up to her--all the bulk of him.
She looks at him and stops, framed by the hawthorn. Her strangely
slight and pale face is apprehensive, the lids tremble on her
magnificent eyes. She is bareheaded, and in the hollowed neck of her
linen corsage there is the dawning of her flesh. So near, she is
truly enticing in the sunshine, this woman crowned with gold, and
one's glance is impelled and astonished by the moon-like purity of
her skin.
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