Portrait of a Man with Red Hair

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Hugh Walpole

Portrait of a Man with Red Hair

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For Harkness had committed the folly of having two books open on his knee–a peck at one, a peck at another, a long, eager glance through the window at the summer scene, but above all a sensuous state of slumber hovering in the hot scented afternoon air just above him, waiting to pounce... to pounce...

First Browning, then this other, the old book in a faded red-brown cover, “To Paradise: Frederick Lester.’ At the bottom of the title-page, 1892–how long ago! How faded and pathetic the old book was! He alone in all the British Isles at that moment reading it–certainly no other living soul–and he had crossed to Browning after Lester’s third page.

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