THE LONDONERS

AN ABSURDITY

BY

ROBERT HICHENS

AUTHOR OF

 "THE GARDEN OF ALLAH," "THE FRUITFUL VINE," ETC.

COPYRIGHT EDITION

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1912

CONTENTS.

[Pg 7]

[Pg 7]

THE LONDONERS.

CHAPTER I.

"NOT ELLIMAN."

Mrs. Verulam came into her drawing-room slowly and rather wearily. It was a sultry afternoon in May—indeed, the papers were quite in a ferment about the exceptional heat-wave that was passing over London; and a premature old General, anxious apparently to be up to time, had just died of tropical apoplexy in Park Lane. Possibly it was the weather that had painted the pallor on Mrs. Verulam's exceedingly pretty face. Beneath her mist of yellow hair her dark-grey eyes looked out pathetically, with the sort of pathos that means nothing in particular—the grace of an indefinite sorrow. She was clad in a pale-pink tea-gown, elaborately 

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