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

He was left hardly a moment to think of this. Almost before the woman had shut the door, Mrs. Hurtle came to him out of her bedroom, with her hat on her head. Nothing could be more simple than her dress, and nothing prettier. It was now June, and the weather was warm, and the lady wore a light gauzy black dress⁠—there is a fabric which the milliners I think call grenadine⁠—coming close up round her throat. It was very pretty, and she was prettier even than her dress. And she had on a hat, black also, small and simple, but very pretty. There are times at which a man going to a theatre with a lady wishes her to be bright in her apparel⁠—almost gorgeous; in which he will hardly be contented unless her cloak be scarlet, and her dress white, and her gloves of some bright hue⁠—unless she wear roses or jewels in her hair. It is thus our girls go to the theatre now, when they go intending that all the world shall know who they are. But there are times again in which a man would prefer that his companion should be very quiet in her dress⁠—but still pretty; in which he would choose that she should dress herself for him only. All this Mrs. Hurtle had understood accurately; and Paul Montague, who understood nothing of it, was gratified. “You told me to have a hat, and here I am⁠—hat and all.” She gave him her hand, and laughed, and looked pleasantly at him, as though there was no cause of unhappiness between them. The lodging-house woman saw them enter the cab, and muttered some little word as they went off. Paul did not hear the word, but was sure that it bore some indistinct reference to his expected marriage.

Neither during the drive, nor at the dinner, nor during the performance at the theatre, did she say a word in allusion to her engagement. It was with them, as in former days it had been at New York. She whispered pleasant words to him, touching his arm now and again with her finger as she spoke, seeming ever better inclined to listen than to speak. Now and again she referred, after some slightest fashion, to little circumstances that had occurred between them, to some joke, some hour of tedium, some moment of delight; but it was done as one man might do it to another⁠—if any man could have done it so pleasantly. There was a scent which he had once approved, and now she bore it on her handkerchief. There was a ring which he had once given her, and she wore it on the finger with which she touched his sleeve. With his own hands he had once adjusted her curls, and each curl was as he had placed it. She had a way of shaking her head, that was very pretty⁠—a way that might, one would think, have been dangerous at her age, as likely to betray those first grey hairs which will come to disturb the last days of youth. He had once told her in sport to be more careful. She now shook her head again, and, as he smiled, she told him that she could still dare to be careless. There are a thousand little silly softnesses which are pretty and endearing between acknowledged lovers, with which no woman would like to dispense, to which even men who are in love submit sometimes with delight; but which in other circumstances would be vulgar⁠—and to the woman distasteful. There are closenesses and sweet approaches, smiles and nods and pleasant winkings, whispers, innuendoes and hints, little mutual admirations and assurances that there are things known to those two happy ones of which the world beyond is altogether ignorant. Much of this comes of nature, but something of it sometimes comes by art. Of such art as there may be in it Mrs. Hurtle was a perfect master. No allusion was made to their engagement⁠—not an unpleasant word was spoken; but the art was practised with all its pleasant adjuncts. Paul was flattered to the top of his bent; and, though the sword was hanging over his head, though he knew that the sword must fall⁠—must partly fall that very night⁠—still he enjoyed it.

There are men who, of their natures, do not like women, even though they may have wives and legions of daughters, and be surrounded by things feminine in all the affairs of their lives. Others again have their strongest affinities and sympathies with women, and are rarely altogether happy when removed from their influence. Paul Montague was of the latter sort. At this time he was thoroughly in love with Hetta Carbury, and was not in love with Mrs. Hurtle. He would have given much of his golden prospects in the American railway to have had Mrs. Hurtle reconveyed suddenly to San Francisco. And yet he had a delight in her presence. “The acting isn’t very good,” he said when the piece was nearly over.

“What does it signify? What we enjoy or what we suffer depends upon the humour. The acting is not first-rate, but I have listened and laughed and cried, because I have been happy.”

He was bound to tell her that he also had enjoyed the evening, and was bound to say it in no voice of hypocritical constraint. “It has been very jolly,” he said.

“And one has so little that is really jolly, as you call it. I wonder whether any girl ever did sit and cry like that because her lover talked to another woman. What I find fault with is that the writers and actors are so ignorant of men and women as we see them every day. It’s all right that she should cry, but she shouldn’t cry there.” The position described was so nearly her own, that he could say nothing to this. She had so spoken on purpose⁠—fighting her own battle after her own