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Homo, by F. Hopkinson Smith
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Title: Homo 1909
Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23694]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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HOMO
By F. Hopkinson Smith
1909
Dinner was over, and Mme. Constantin and her guests were seated under the lighted candles in her cosey salon.
With the serving of the coffee and cigarettes, pillows had been adjusted to bare shoulders, stools moved under slippered feet, and easy lounges pushed nearer the fire. Greenough, his long body aslant, his head on the edge of a chair, his feet on the hearth rug, was blowing rings to the ceiling. Bayard, the African explorer, and the young Russian Secretary, Ivan Petrovski, had each the end of a long sofa, with pretty Mme. Petrovski and old Baron Sleyde between them, while Mme. Constantin lay nestled like a kitten among the big and little cushions of a divan.
The dinner had been a merry one, with every brain at its best; this restful silence was but another luxury. Only the Baron rattled on. A duel of unusual ferocity had startled Paris, and the old fellow knew its every detail. Mme. Petrovski was listening in a languid way:
"Dead, isn't he?" she asked in an indifferent tone, as being the better way to change the subject. Duels did not