Read The Hollow for Free Online Page A

were always masculine.) He'll do Bale Hill in third - not straining at all - quite effortlessly. Listen to the even way he ticks over.”
    Until he had burst out suddenly and furiously:
    “Don't you think, Henrietta, you could pay some attention to me and forget the damned car for a minute or two!”
    He was always ashamed of these outbursts.
    He never knew when they would come upon him out of a blue sky.
    It was the same thing over her work. He realized that her work was good. He admired it - and hated it - at the same time.
    The most furious quarrel he had had with her had arisen over that.
    Gerda had said to him one day:
    “Henrietta has asked me to sit for her.”
    “What?” His astonishment had not, if he came to think of it, been flattering. “You?”
    “Yes, I'm going over to the studio tomorrow.”
    “What on earth does she want you for?”
    No, he hadn't been very polite about it. But luckily Gerda hadn't realized that fact. She had looked pleased about it. He suspected Henrietta of one of those insincere kindnesses of hers - Gerda, perhaps, had hinted that she would like to be modelled. Something of that kind.
    Then, about ten days later, Gerda had shown him triumphantly a small plaster statuette.
    It was a pretty thing - technically skilful like all of Henrietta's work. It idealized Gerda - and Gerda herself was clearly pleased about it.
    “I really think it's rather charming, John.”
    “Is that Henrietta's work? It means nothing - nothing at all. I don't see how she came to do a thing like that.”
    “It's different, of course, from her abstract work - but I think it's good, John, I really do.”
    He had said no more - after all, he didn't want to spoil Gerda's pleasure. But he tackled Henrietta about it at the first opportunity.
    “What did you want to make that silly thing of Gerda for? It's unworthy of you. After all, you usually turn out decent stuff.”
    Henrietta said slowly:
    “I didn't think it was bad. Gerda seemed quite pleased.”
    “Gerda was delighted. She would be. Gerda doesn't know art from a coloured photograph.”
    “It wasn't bad art, John. It was just a portrait statuette - quite harmless and not at all pretentious.”
    “You don't usually waste your time doing that kind of stuff -”
    He broke off, staring at a wooden figure about five feet high.
    “Hullo, what's this?”
    “It's for the International Group. Pearwood. The Worshipper.”
    She watched him. He stared and then - suddenly, his neck swelled and he turned on her furiously.
    “So that's what you wanted Gerda for? How dare you?”
    “I wondered if you'd see...”
    “See it? Of course I see it. It's here.” He placed a finger on the broad, heavy neck muscles.
    Henrietta nodded.
    “Yes, it's the neck and shoulders I wanted - and that heavy forward slant - the submission - that bowed look. It's wonderful!”
    “Wonderful? Look here, Henrietta, I won't have it. You're to leave Gerda alone.”
    “Gerda won't know. Nobody will know. You know Gerda would never recognize herself here - nobody else would either. And it isn't Gerda. It isn't anybody.”
    “I recognized it, didn't I?”
    “You're different, John. You - see things.”
    “It's the damned cheek of it! I won't have it, Henrietta! I won't have it. Can't you see that it was an indefensible thing to do?”
    “Was it?”
    “Don't you know it was? Can't you feel it was? Where's your usual sensitiveness?”
    Henrietta said slowly:
    “You don't understand, John. I don't think I could ever make you understand... You don't know what it is to want something - to look at it day after day - that line of the neck - those muscles - the angle where the head goes forward - that heaviness round the jaw. I've been looking at them, wanting them - every time I saw Gerda... In the end I just had to have them!”
    “Unscrupulous!”
    “Yes, I suppose just that. But when you want things in that way you just have to take them.”
    “You mean you don't care a damn about