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Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900

"Active Service"

"
" It must have been about something," continued Marjory.
She continued, because Peter had denied that she was
concerned in it. " Whose fault ? "
"I really don't know. It was all rather confusing," lied Peter,
tranquilly.
Coleman and the professor decided to accept a plan of the
correspondent's dragoman to start soon on the first stage of
the journey to Athens. The dragoman had said that he had
found two large carriages rentable.
Coke, the outcast, walked alone in the narrow streets. The
flight of the crown prince's army from Larissa had just been
announced in Arta, but Coke was probably the most
woebegone object on the Greek peninsula.
He encountered a strange sight on the streets. A woman
garbed in the style for walking of an afternoon on upper
Broadway was approaching him through a mass of kilted
mountaineers and soldiers in soiled overcoats. Of course he
recognised Nora Black.
In his conviction that everybody in the world was at this
time considering him a mere worm, he was sure that she would
not heed him. Beyond that he had been presented to her notice
in but a transient and cursory fashion. But contrary to his
conviction, she turned a radiant smile upon him. " Oh," she
said, brusquely, " you are one of the students. Good
morning." In her manner was all the confidence of an old
warrior, a veteran, who addresses the universe with assurance
because of his past battles.
Coke grinned at this strange greeting.


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