The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

had been withdrawn, and yet he shrunk from the cruelty of telling her, in a sideway fashion, that he would not submit to her companionship either for the purpose of such a journey or for any other purpose. The thing must be said in a solemn manner, and must be introduced on its own basis. But such preliminary conversation as this made the introduction of it infinitely more difficult.

“You are not in a hurry?” she said.

“Oh no.”

“You’re going to spend the evening with me like a good man? Then I’ll ask them to let us have tea.” She rang the bell and Ruby came in, and the tea was ordered. “That young lady tells me that you are an old friend of hers.”

“I’ve known about her down in the country, and was astonished to find her here yesterday.”

“There’s some lover, isn’t there;⁠—some would-be husband whom she does not like?”

“And some won’t-be husband, I fear, whom she does like.”

“That’s quite of course, if the other is true. Miss Ruby isn’t the girl to have come to her time of life without a preference. The natural liking of a young woman for a man in a station above her, because he is softer and cleaner and has better parts of speech⁠—just as we keep a pretty dog if we keep a dog at all⁠—is one of the evils of the inequality of mankind. The girl is content with the love without having the love justified, because the object is more desirable. She can only have her love justified with an object less desirable. If all men wore coats of the same fabric, and had to share the soil of the work of the world equally between them, that evil would come to an end. A woman here and there might go wrong from fantasy and diseased passions, but the ever-existing temptation to go wrong would be at an end.”

“If men were equal tomorrow and all wore the same coats, they would wear different coats the next day.”

“Slightly different. But there would be no more purple and fine linen, and no more blue woad. It isn’t to be done in a day of course, nor yet in a century⁠—nor in a decade of centuries; but every human being who looks into it honestly will see that his efforts should be made in that direction. I remember; you never take sugar; give me that.”

Neither had he come here to discuss the deeply interesting questions of women’s difficulties and immediate or progressive equality. But having got on to these rocks⁠—having, as the reader may perceive, been taken on to them wilfully by the skill of the woman⁠—he did not know how to get his bark out again into clear waters. But having his own subject before him, with all its dangers, the wildcat’s claws, and the possible fate of the gentleman in Oregon, he could not talk freely on the subjects which she introduced, as had been his wont in former years. “Thanks,” he said, changing his cup. “How well you remember!”

“Do you think I shall ever forget your preferences and dislikings? Do you recollect telling me about that blue scarf of mine, that I should never wear blue?”

She stretched herself out towards him, waiting for an answer, so that he was obliged to speak. “Of course I do. Black is your colour;⁠—black and grey; or white⁠—and perhaps yellow when you choose to be gorgeous; crimson possibly. But not blue or green.”

“I never thought much of it before, but I have taken your word for gospel. It is very good to have an eye for such things⁠—as you have, Paul. But I fancy that taste comes with, or at any rate forbodes, an effete civilisation.”

“I am sorry that mine should be effete,” he said smiling.

“You know what I mean, Paul. I speak of nations, not individuals. Civilisation was becoming effete, or at any rate men were, in the time of the great painters; but Savanarola and Galileo were individuals. You should throw your lot in with a new people. This railway to Mexico gives you the chance.”

“Are the Mexicans a new people?”

“They who will rule the Mexicans are. All American women I dare say have bad taste in gowns⁠—and so the vain ones and rich ones send to Paris for their finery; but I think our taste in men is generally good. We like our philosophers; we like our poets; we like our genuine workmen;⁠—but we love our heroes. I would have you a hero, Paul.” He got up from his chair and walked about the room in an agony of despair. To be told that he was expected to be a hero at the very moment in his life in which he felt more devoid of heroism, more thoroughly given up to cowardice than he had ever been before, was not to be endured! And yet, with what utmost stretch of courage⁠—even though he were willing to devote himself certainly and instantly to the worst fate that he had pictured to himself⁠—could he immediately rush away from these abstract speculations, encumbered as they were with personal flattery, into his own most unpleasant, most tragic matter! It was the unfitness that deterred him and not the possible tragedy. Nevertheless, through it all, he was sure⁠—nearly sure⁠—that she was playing her game, and playing it in direct antagonism to the game which she knew that he wanted to play. Would it not be better that he should go away and write another letter? In a letter he could at any rate say what he had to say;⁠—and having said it he would then strengthen himself to adhere to it. “What makes you so uneasy?” she asked; still speaking in her most winning way, caressing him with the tones of her voice. “Do you not like me to say that I would have you be a hero?”

“Winifrid,” he said, “I came here with a purpose, and I had better carry it out.”

“What purpose?” She still leaned forward,