Explore "The Swing of the Pendulum" by Adriana Spadoni on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Gregory Allen had never intended to let three months pass without telling Jean of his promise to go to Maine. But at first his going had seemed a distant point, and then, as it crept nearer and nearer, the right moment for the telling never came. Now, how could he say: "I am going to Maine to-morrow for a month. I promised Puck when she was ill. " He had said nothing of the illness at the time. How drag out his own state of mind on the afternoon he had had tea with Jean and lied to her?
Gregory wished that Jean would say something, almost anything, to break the silence. Not a soul seemed to be alive in the great building about them. On the river occasional excursion steamers turned their dazzling flashlights, lighting the room and Palisades to uncanny, whitish glow. They were huge phantoms moving in the stillness. All the worlds of the universe hung motionless in perfect adjustment. Jean sat utterly at rest, so near him that by the smallest motion he could touch her. But Gregory did not move.