"Did I hear you say you had been ill?" she asked.

He leant forward, bending his head low over the fringe; she could not see

his face. "I had inflammation of something or other, and I went partially

off my head--got out of bed and walked about in an east wind with a

temperature of a hundred and two, decimal point nine."

"Oh, Louis, how wicked of you! You might have died!"

"No such luck."

"For shame! I've been ill too; did you know? Of course you didn't, or

else you'd have come to ask how I was, wouldn't you? No, you wouldn't.

How could you come when you were ill?"

"I would have come. I didn't know."

"Didn't you? Oh, well--we had a fire here, and I was burnt; that's all.

How funny you not knowing, though. It was in all the papers--'Heroic

conduct of a lady.' Aren't they silly, those people that write papers.

I wasn't heroic a bit."

"I--I never saw it. I was in Paris."

"In Paris? Ah, I love Paris! That's where I went for my honeymoon. Was

that where you were ill?"

"Yes."

"Poor Louis! And I was so happy there."

Poor Louis!--she had loved Nevill in him and he was still a part of

Nevill. And for the rest, she who understood so much, who was she to

judge him?

He looked at her. By this time his sensations had lost the sting of

pity and horror. He could look without flinching. The fire had only burnt

the lower frame-work of the face, leaving the features untouched; the

eyes still glowed under their scorched brows with a look half-tender,

half-triumphant.

It was as if they said, "See what it was you loved so much."

The little fool, tortured into wisdom, was that what she meant? It was

always hard to fathom her meanings. Could it be that?

Yes, it must be. She had sent for him, not because she wanted to see

him, but because she wanted him to see her. She had sent for him to save

him. The sight of her face had killed her husband's love; she had

supposed that it would do the same kind office for his. Would any other

woman have thought of it? It was preposterous, of course; but it would

not have been Mrs. Nevill Tyson's idea without some touch of divine

absurdity.

But--could any other woman have done it? "See what it was you loved so

much." Poor little fool!

And he saw. This was not Mrs. Nevill Tyson, but it was the woman that he

had loved. Her being Mrs. Nevill Tyson was an accident; it had nothing to

do with her. Her beauty too? It was gone. So was something that had

obscured his judgment of her. He had doubted her over and over again,

unwillingly at first, willfully at the end; but he knew now that if for

one instant she had justified his skepticism he would have ceased to love

her. It was the paradox of her purity, dimly discerned under all his

doubt, that had tormented and fascinated him; and she held him by it

still.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024