Out of the Past — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Out of the Past. Kas or, about the circle of expectant faces and the men grew ex- ceedingly uncomfortable. “We nose about the path where it has passed, like hounds on the track of a being out of their class. .We deck ourselves in its cast-off clothes and mimic what we think to be its mode. But is there one of us who would not flee from it like a pest if to be true to it meant to be poor? Let us not deceive ourselves; we have not known love. I have read of an affection of the mind and heart which brings peace to the tired brain, peace to the soul. Is there ever peace for us? I would sing that love, but I cannot. I do not know it. And you!” she exclaimed, turning with sudden passion upon the men, “you cannot know it either. You are more selfish than we are—worse than we are. But I tire you, and none of you understand me. I will sing you what I know to have happened.” Sitting back in her chair carved like a throne, and nestling her head in a hollow of its carving, she looked away over the heads of her guests and presently began to sing, half remembering, half im- provising her verses: “Far in the slumbering hills, stands a hut made of stone and of wood, Where the wild, rocking winds wreak their wills, where the menacing crags silent stocd, When a woman of sweet, laughing face, came to dwell ‘neath their grim, stately grace. GOmicbdoo Sri