"I get so little time for reading,
and then I only care to read the books that help me," and she gave
me a grateful look more eloquent than words.
I described the work to her, and wishing to do my friend justice I
even recited a few of the passages upon which, as I knew, he
especially prided himself.
One sentence in particular seemed to lay hold of her. "A good
woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him
from heaven."
"How beautiful!" she murmured. "Say it again."
I said it again, and she repeated it after me.
Then a noisy old lady swooped down upon her, and I drifted away
into a corner, where I tried to look as if I were enjoying myself,
and failed.
Later on, feeling it time to go, I sought my friend, and found him
talking to her in a corner. I approached and waited. They were
discussing the latest east-end murder. A drunken woman had been
killed by her husband, a hard-working artizan, who had been
maddened by the ruin of his home.
"Ah," she was saying, "what power a woman has to drag a man down or
lift him up. I never read a case in which a woman is concerned
without thinking of those beautiful lines of yours: 'A good
woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him
from heaven.
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