The Place of the Lion

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Book: Read The Place of the Lion for Free Online
Authors: Charles Williams
eaten by the lion, and I’ve been mauled by the lioness. I think I will now go and look for the other lioness.”
    Damaris half-turned and smiled at him over her shoulder. “Do I maul you?” she asked. “Am I a pig and a prig—just because I like my work?”
    Anthony gazed at her solemnly. “You are the Sherbet of Allah, and the gold cup he drinks it out of,” he said slowly. “You are the Night of Repose and the Day of Illumination. You are, incidentally, a night with a good deal of rain and a day with a nasty cold wind. But that may be merely Allah’s little game.”
    â€œI hate being bad friends with you,” Damaris said, with perfect truth, and gave him her hand.
    â€œBut I,” said Anthony, as he kissed it, “hate being good friends. Besides, I don’t think you could be.”
    â€œWhat, a bad friend?”
    â€œNo, a good one,” Anthony said, almost sadly. “It’s all right, I suppose; it isn’t your fault—or at least it wasn’t. You were made like it by the Invisibles that created you.”
    â€œWhy are you always so rude to me, Anthony?” she asked, as wistfully as she thought desirable, but keeping rather on the side of intellectual curiosity than of hurt tenderness.
    â€œI shall be ruder to the other lioness,” he said. “It’s only a way of saying, ‘Hear thou my protestation’—and making quite sure you do.”
    â€œBut what do you mean—look for the lioness?” Damaris asked. “You’re not anxious to find it, are you?”
    Anthony smiled at her. “Well, you want to work,” he said, “and I could do with a walk. And so, one way and another——” He drew her a little closer to him, but as she moved they both suddenly paused. There struck momentarily into their nostrils—what Damaris recognized and Anthony didn’t—a waft of the horrible stench that had assailed her on the previous night in the house where Mr. Berringer lay insensible. It was gone in a second or two, but to each of them it was obvious that the other had smelt it.
    â€œMy God!” Anthony said involuntarily, as Damaris shuddered and threw back her head. “What’s the matter with your drains?”
    â€œNothing,” Damaris said sharply. “But what—did you smell something!”
    â€œ Smell, ” Anthony exclaimed. “It was like a corpse walking. Or a beast out of a jungle. What on earth is it?” He sniffed experimentally. “No, it’s gone. It must be your drains.”
    â€œIt isn’t our drains,” Damaris said crossly. “I smelt it at that house last night, only not nearly so strongly; but how it got here——! It can’t be the frock—I wasn’t wearing it. How horrible!”
    They were standing staring at one another, and she shook herself abruptly, then, recovering her normal remoteness, “I shall go and have a bath,” she said. It occurred to her that the smell might be, in some way, clinging to her hair, but she wasn’t going to admit to Anthony that anything about her could be even remotely undesirable, so she ended—“It makes one feel to need it.”
    â€œIt does,” Anthony said. “I suppose the lioness——”
    â€œIn a town—unseen? My dear Anthony!”
    He looked out of the window at the street and the houses opposite. People were going by; a car stopped; a policeman came into sight. “Why, no,” he said, “I suppose not. Well—it’s funny. Anyhow, I’m off now. Goodbye, and do think about salvation.”
    â€œGoodbye,” she said. “Thank you for coming, and if I ever seem to need it I will. But I’ve read a good deal about salvation, you know, in all those tiresome texts of one sort and another.”
    â€œYes,” Anthony answered, as they came into the hall. “Reading isn’t

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