The Rat-Trap (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...mosquito thought of his own desire above all artistic considerations--just as that much higher creation called Man might do if, for instance, he wished to feel the pressure of his own hand on hers. Mrs. Lewin was hardly thinking as the long hours wore to morning, and the flutter of moths' wings gave way to that of humming-birds, who had built their nests below the stoep, --she was simply suffering. It seemed to her that her mind was one blind pain and a bewildering humiliation. For it was not the thing in itself that horrified her--a man's hand laid over hers for some sixty seconds seemed a trivial thing enough--but what it meant. She who had unconsciously put herself on a pedestal, found that she had fallen, not by the unimportant act but by the revelation it had brought of her own emotions. She had not been cool under Gregory's touch; if she had she would have brushed the incident aside as a thing of no consequence, tiresome but to be disregarded; her blood had answered his, and beat in her veins, and made her whole body thrill and sicken as no touch had ever done before. A knowledge that she could no longer deny to herself dismayed her, showing her this first touch as the prelude to more that she dared not contemplate. It was the thin end of the wedge, the passing of a boundary line to a path that might lead her--anywhere. She knew it, and in the warm, soft darkness she did not lie to herself as she might have done in the decent day. A married woman is somewhat defenceless against herself, for she is forced to acknowledge her own emotions, and has legitimised their classification. While she is unmarried--whether by law or slighter bonds--she can theorise, but she can always excuse herself by saying that she does not know the meaning of her sex. Nor in a c..