The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

I don’t comprehend. If this be your way of living, I have no right to complain.”

“For God’s sake, Carbury, do not speak in that way. It sounds as though you meant to throw me over.”

“I should have said that you had thrown me over. You come down here to this hotel, where we are both known, with this lady whom you are not going to marry;⁠—and I meet you, just by chance. Had I known it, of course I could have turned the other way. But coming on you by accident, as I did, how am I not to speak to you? And if I speak, what am I to say? Of course I think that the lady will succeed in marrying you.”

“Never.”

“And that such a marriage will be your destruction. Doubtless she is good-looking.”

“Yes, and clever. And you must remember that the manners of her country are not as the manners of this country.”

“Then if I marry at all,” said Roger, with all his prejudice expressed strongly in his voice, “I trust I may not marry a lady of her country. She does not think that she is to marry you, and yet she comes down here and stays with you. Paul, I don’t believe it. I believe you, but I don’t believe her. She is here with you in order that she may marry you. She is cunning and strong. You are foolish and weak. Believing as I do that marriage with her would be destruction, I should tell her my mind⁠—and leave her.” Paul at the moment thought of the gentleman in Oregon, and of certain difficulties in leaving. “That’s what I should do. You must go in now, I suppose, and eat your dinner.”

“I may come to the hall as I go back home?”

“Certainly you may come if you please,” said Roger. Then he bethought himself that his welcome had not been cordial. “I mean that I shall be delighted to see you,” he added, marching away along the strand. Paul did go into the hotel, and did eat his dinner. In the meantime Roger Carbury marched far away along the strand. In all that he had said to Montague he had spoken the truth, or that which appeared to him to be the truth. He had not been influenced for a moment by any reference to his own affairs. And yet he feared, he almost knew, that this man⁠—who had promised to marry a strange American woman and who was at this very moment living in close intercourse with the woman after he had told her that he would not keep his promise⁠—was the chief barrier between himself and the girl that he loved. As he had listened to John Crumb while John spoke of Ruby Ruggles, he had told himself that he and John Crumb were alike. With an honest, true, heartfelt desire they both panted for the companionship of a fellow-creature whom each had chosen. And each was to be thwarted by the make-believe regard of unworthy youth and fatuous good looks! Crumb, by dogged perseverance and indifference to many things, would probably be successful at last. But what chance was there of success for him? Ruby, as soon as want or hardship told upon her, would return to the strong arm that could be trusted to provide her with plenty and comparative ease. But Hetta Carbury, if once her heart had passed from her own dominion into the possession of another, would never change her love. It was possible, no doubt⁠—nay, how probable⁠—that her heart was still vacillating. Roger thought that he knew that at any rate she had not as yet declared her love. If she were now to know⁠—if she could now learn⁠—of what nature was the love of this other man; if she could be instructed that he was living alone with a lady whom not long since he had promised to marry⁠—if she could be made to understand this whole story of Mrs. Hurtle, would not that open her eyes? Would she not then see where she could trust her happiness, and where, by so trusting it, she would certainly be shipwrecked!

“Never,” said Roger to himself, hitting at the stones on the beach with his stick. “Never.” Then he got his horse and rode back to Carbury Manor.

XLVII Mrs. Hurtle at Lowestoft

When Paul got down into the dining-room Mrs. Hurtle was already there, and the waiter was standing by the side of the table ready to take the cover off the soup. She was radiant with smiles and made herself especially pleasant during dinner, but Paul felt sure that everything was not well with her. Though she smiled, and talked and laughed, there was something forced in her manner. He almost knew that she was only waiting till the man should have left the room to speak in a different strain. And so it was. As soon as the last lingering dish had been removed, and when the door was finally shut behind the retreating waiter, she asked the question which no doubt had been on her mind since she had walked across the strand to the hotel. “Your friend was hardly civil; was he, Paul?”

“Do you mean that he should have come in? I have no doubt it was true that he had dined.”

“I am quite indifferent about his dinner⁠—but there are two ways of declining as there are of accepting. I suppose he is on very intimate terms with you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then his want of courtesy was the more evidently intended for me. In point of fact he disapproves of me. Is not that it?” To this question Montague did not feel himself called upon to make any immediate answer. “I can well understand that it should be so. An intimate friend may like or dislike the friend of his friend, without offence. But unless there be strong reason he is bound to be civil to his friend’s friend, when accident brings them together.