The Paper Chase Read Online Free Page B

immense dignity she walked to one of the armchairs and sat down. It was an impressive entrance, and would have been more impressive still had not the chair springs creaked as she sat down.
    “May I present my new assistants – Charles Applegate and Francis Montague. My wife has been more than a helpmeet, she has been an inspiration through the struggles of more than twenty years.” Pont spoke the lines like a ham actor. The change from his assured manner in talking of Derek Winterbottom was remarkable.
    Applegate and Montague advanced, took the limp hand that was offered to them, and murmured something. Mrs Pont’s great flat white face was turned up to them, apparently almost unseeing. She said slowly: “I am pleased to meet you. Jeremy, if you will bring the machine over here I will make coffee.”
    “Yes, my dear.” The machine turned out to be a Cona and while Mrs Pont, with immense deliberation, lit the flame beneath it, her husband talked rapidly and nervously. “When I say an inspiration, that is no more than the literal truth. Through my struggles as an educationist, and the way of the pioneer is hard, it is a thick jungle of ignorance that we attack with our machetes, Janine has supported me. She has done more than that, she has made positive and very real suggestions about the nature and scope of education. No doubt you have read my little volume, Education in an Ideal Society. I think I may say that it was a forward-looking work, in ideas if not in expression. The ideas were Janine’s, my task was merely to provide the clothing in which they were dressed. My dear – if you will excuse me…” He moved the methylated wick away from the bubbling coffee.
    Mrs Pont, who had been staring straight ahead of her, said: “Will you take sugar and cream, Mr – ?”
    “Applegate. Both, please.”
    She put in sugar and cream with the same slow-motion deliberation. “Jeremy is too modest. He has many admirers who have written about him. Bring me the album, Jeremy. From the cupboard by the window.”
    “My dear, please.” Pont’s cheeks were a little pinker than usual.
    “I shall get it myself.” Applegate and Montague watched in awestruck silence as she levered herself up in the armchair like some great ship slowly raised from the sea bed. Before she had finally risen Pont, with a murmured inaudible word, had darted across the room. He returned with a large green volume. Mrs Pont sank back in the chair, took the book in her white hands and began to read.
    There ensued one of the most embarrassing half-hours of Applegate’s life. The embarrassment came partly from the fact that she read badly, stumbling over words occasionally, and speaking with an almost total lack of expression. Partly he was embarrassed also by the nature of the material. There were many newspaper cuttings and a few letters. Most of the cuttings were ironical in tone, and perhaps half the letters had been written by people on the lunatic fringe of eccentricity.
    “You will be interested to know that John shows a great talent for embroidery and that specimens of his work are to be entered in our local exhibition… Jennifer refuses to wear clothes even in bitter weather, she has such a sense of freedom… It is thanks to you that Lenore now identifies herself with un-Wordsworthian nature. Her book on fungoid and human growth is being published by…” This, or something like it, he had expected. The truly appalling thing was his sudden realisation that as she read on Mrs Pont was stumbling over words more frequently. He was thankful when she closed the album and gave it back to her husband.
    “You see, Jeremy underestimates himself. His work is appreciated.” Applegate and Montague nodded like mandarins. “And now I must leave you. I feel my headache coming back. Pray don’t help me, Jeremy. I can manage perfectly well.”
    The levering process went on again, but this time she rose completely from the chair. The silver curls shifted a