(And the Louis who now
discussed the case was an innocent, reborn Louis, quite unconnected
with the Louis of the previous evening; he knew no more of the
inwardness of the affair than Rachel did. Of such singular feats of
doubling the personality is the self-deceiving mind capable.) After
a time it became implicit in the tone of their conversation that
the mysterious disappearance in a small, ordinary house of even so
colossal a sum as nine hundred and sixty-five pounds did not mean
the end of the world. That is to say, they grew accustomed to the
situation. Louis, indeed, permitted himself to suggest, as a man of
the large, still-existing world, that Rachel should guard against
over-estimating the importance of the sum. True, as he had several
times reflected, it did represent an income of about a pound a
week! But, after all, what was a pound a week, viewed in a proper
perspective?...
Louis somehow glided from the enormous topic to the topic of the
newest cinema--Rachel had never seen a cinema, except a very primitive
one, years earlier--and old Batchgrew was mentioned, he being
notoriously a cinema magnate. "I cannot stand that man," said Rachel
with a candour that showed to what intimacy their talk had developed.
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