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Only now did the full goodness of Dora take a contained shape in et a full iled fros and her owl-like face peering at raveOnce in a century or two perhaps, one crosses the path of a being like Dora An elegant intelligence and concept of goodness, precisely, and the other thing Roger had struggled to describe, the le of faith and scripture

The night arm and receptive

My courtyard banana trees had not been touched by a freeze this winter, and grew thick and drowsing as ever against the brick walls

The wild irown beds, and the fountain, the fountain with its cherub, wasits crystalline music as the water splashed from the cherub's horn into the basin

New Orleans, scents of the Quarter

I ran up the back steps from the courtyard to the rear door of my flat

I went inside, pounding down the hall, a man in a state of visible and ostentatious confusion I saw a shadow cross the living room

"David!"

"He's not here "

I came to a halt in the doorframe

It was the Ordinary Man

He stood with his back to Louis's desk between the two front s, ar a patient intellect and a sort of unbreakable poise

"Don't run again," he said without rancour "I'll go after you I asked you to please leave that girl out of it Didn't I? I was only trying to get you to cut it short "

"I've never run from you!" I said, quite unsure of myself and determined to make that the truth from this moment on "Well, not really! I didn't want you near Dora What do you want?"

"What do you think?"