Reluctant sinners / by Sidney Fairway.

  • Fairway, Sidney, 1879-1947.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Reluctant sinners / by Sidney Fairway. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    what you promised,” she said, after the second quarrel which had very nearly concluded their asso¬ ciation. “I don’t know what you mean.” “Oh, yes, you do. I heard you threaten to ‘do him in’ if he gave you any more of his lip.” He did not bother to contradict her. He had said nothing of the sort but it was obvious that, for some reason of her own, the girl was trying to make it impossible for him to remain at the office. On Sylvia’s birthday Humphrey had promised to get away early, but Birnstrom, who had arranged an appointment at five o’clock, was suddenly called out of town. Humphrey ’phoned to Sylvia to say that he would have to interview the visitor and would be unable to get home, as he had hoped, to dress. It did not much matter. She liked him to wear a dinner jacket on such festive occasions, but, at the restaurant where they were going to dine, it was not necessary. To his surprise she did not complain : it was quite all right and he could meet her at Victoria. She was in high spirits that evening—a little excited, perhaps a little too excited. But it was her birth¬ day and, for many years, such enjoyment had been denied her. She was making up for lost time, now that she was quite well again. But it wasn’t the Sylvia he most appreciated. There was too little restraint, a slight tendency to emphasize unduly intimate matters which may so easily be brutalized. It was almost as though she were trying to propitiate a Satyr, and Humphrey resented the implication. It is not always easy to sublimate our passions but he had always tried to do so. To-night, she seemed to be deliberately debasing their love, to be placing it on a plane which was purely animal. It was almost as though he held some strange woman in his arms. Reaction followed. For several days she was irritable