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XXVII
Statira and 'Manda Grier had given up their plan of getting places
in a summer hotel when Lemuel absolutely refused to take part in it,
and were working through the summer in the box-factory. Lemuel came
less regularly to see them now, for his Sunday nights had to be at
Mr. Corey's disposition; but Statira was always happy in his coming,
and made him more excuses than he had thought of, if he had let a
longer interval than usual pass. He could not help feeling the
loveliness of her patience, the sweetness of her constancy; but he
disliked 'Manda Grier more and more, and she grew stiffer and
sharper with him. Sometimes the aimlessness of his relation to
Statira hung round him like a cloud, which he could not see beyond.
When he was with her he contented himself with the pleasure he felt
in her devotion, and the tenderness this awakened in his own heart;
but when he was away from her there was a strange disgust and
bitterness in these.
Sometimes, when Statira and 'Manda Grier took a Saturday afternoon
off, he went with them into the country on one of the horse-car
lines, or else to some matinee at a garden-theatre in the suburbs.
Statira liked the theatre better than anything else; and she used to
meet other girls whom she knew there, and had a gay time. She
introduced Lemuel to them, and after a few moments of high civility
and distance they treated him familiarly, as Statira's beau.
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