【英文原著类】The Man Between(夹在中间的人).pdf

The Man Between
The Man Between
AN INTERNATIONAL ROMANCE
By AMELIA E. BARR
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The Man Between
PART FIRST
O LOVE WILL VENTURE IN!
CHAPTER I
THE thing that I know least about is my beginning. For it is possible to
introduce Ethel Rawdon in so many picturesque ways that the choice is
embarrassing, and forces me to the conclusion that the actual
circumstances, monplace, may be the most suitable. Certainly
the events that shape our lives are seldom ushered in with pomp or
ceremony; they steal upon us unannounced, and begin their work without
giving any premonition of their importance.
Consequently Ethel had no idea when she returned home one night
from a rather stupid entertainment that she was about to open a new and
important chapter of her life. Hitherto that life had been one of the
sweetest and simplest character--the lessons and sports of childhood and
girlhood had claimed her een years; and Ethel was just at that
wonderful age when, the brook and the river having met, she was feeling
the first swell of those irresistible tides which would carry her day by day
to the haven of all days.
It was Saturday night in the January of 1900, verging toward twelve
o'clock. When she entered her room, she saw that one of the windows was
open, and she stood a moment or two at it, looking across the straight
miles of white lights, in whose illumined shadows thousands of sleepers
were holding their lives in pause.
"It is not New York at all," she whispered, "it is some magical city that
I have seen, but have never trod. It will vanish about six o'clock in the
morning, and there will be mon streets, full mon people.
Of course," and here she closed the window and leisurely removed her
opera cloak, "of course, this is only dreaming, but to dream waking, or to
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The Man Between
dream sleeping, is very pleasant. In dreams we can have men as we like
them, and women as we want them, and make all the world happy and
beautiful."
She was in n