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

fashion, knowing well that her words would confuse him. “A woman hides such tears. She may be found crying because she is unable to hide them;⁠—but she does not willingly let the other woman see them. Does she?”

“I suppose not.”

“Medea did not weep when she was introduced to Creusa.”

“Women are not all Medeas,” he replied.

“There’s a dash of the savage princess about most of them. I am quite ready if you like. I never want to see the curtain fall. And I have had no nosegay brought in a wheelbarrow to throw on to the stage. Are you going to see me home?”

“Certainly.”

“You need not. I’m not a bit afraid of a London cab by myself.” But of course he accompanied her to Islington. He owed her at any rate as much as that. She continued to talk during the whole journey. What a wonderful place London was⁠—so immense, but so dirty! New York of course was not so big, but was, she thought, pleasanter. But Paris was the gem of gems among towns. She did not like Frenchmen, and she liked Englishmen even better than Americans; but she fancied that she could never like English women. “I do so hate all kinds of buckram. I like good conduct, and law, and religion too if it be not forced down one’s throat; but I hate what your women call propriety. I suppose what we have been doing tonight is very improper; but I am quite sure that it has not been in the least wicked.”

“I don’t think it has,” said Paul Montague very tamely.

It is a long way from the Haymarket to Islington, but at last the cab reached the lodging-house door. “Yes, this is it,” she said. “Even about the houses there is an air of stiff-necked propriety which frightens me.” She was getting out as she spoke, and he had already knocked at the door. “Come in for one moment,” she said as he paid the cabman. The woman the while was standing with the door in her hand. It was near midnight⁠—but, when people are engaged, hours do not matter. The woman of the house, who was respectability herself⁠—a nice kind widow, with five children, named Pipkin⁠—understood that and smiled again as he followed the lady into the sitting-room. She had already taken off her hat and was flinging it on to the sofa as he entered. “Shut the door for one moment,” she said; and he shut it. Then she threw herself into his arms, not kissing him but looking up into his face. “Oh Paul,” she exclaimed, “my darling! Oh Paul, my love! I will not bear to be separated from you. No, no;⁠—never. I swear it, and you may believe me. There is nothing I cannot do for love of you⁠—but to lose you.” Then she pushed him from her and looked away from him, clasping her hands together. “But Paul, I mean to keep my pledge to you tonight. It was to be an island in our troubles, a little holiday in our hard school-time, and I will not destroy it at its close. You will see me again soon⁠—will you not?” He nodded assent, then took her in his arms and kissed her, and left her without a word.

XXVIII Dolly Longestaffe Goes Into the City

It has been told how the gambling at the Beargarden went on one Sunday night. On the following Monday Sir Felix did not go to the club. He had watched Miles Grendall at play, and was sure that on more than one or two occasions the man had cheated. Sir Felix did not quite know what in such circumstances it would be best for him to do. Reprobate as he was himself, this work of villainy was new to him and seemed to be very terrible. What steps ought he to take? He was quite sure of his facts, and yet he feared that Nidderdale and Grasslough and Longestaffe would not believe him. He would have told Montague, but Montague had, he thought, hardly enough authority at the club to be of any use to him. On the Tuesday again he did not go to the club. He felt severely the loss of the excitement to which he had been accustomed, but the thing was too important to him to be slurred over. He did not dare to sit down and play with the man who had cheated him without saying anything about it. On the Wednesday afternoon life was becoming unbearable to him and he sauntered into the building at about five in the afternoon. There, as a matter of course, he found Dolly Longestaffe drinking sherry and bitters. “Where the blessed angels have you been?” said Dolly. Dolly was at that moment alert with the sense of a duty performed. He had just called on his sister and written a sharp letter to his father, and felt himself to be almost a man of business.

“I’ve had fish of my own to fry,” said Felix, who had passed the last two days in unendurable idleness. Then he referred again to the money which Dolly owed him, not making any complaint, not indeed asking for immediate payment, but explaining with an air of importance that if a commercial arrangement could be made, it might, at this moment, be very serviceable to him. “I’m particularly anxious to take up those shares,” said Felix.

“Of course you ought to have your money.”

“I don’t say that at all, old fellow. I know very well that you’re all right. You’re not like that fellow, Miles Grendall.”

“Well; no. Poor Miles has got nothing to bless himself with. I suppose I could get it, and so I ought to pay.”

“That’s no excuse for Grendall,” said Sir Felix, shaking his head.

“A chap can’t pay if he hasn’t got it, Carbury. A chap ought to pay of course. I’ve had a letter from our lawyer within the last half hour⁠—here it