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

hard at it, one way or the other. I suppose it all comes from the fall of Adam.”

“If Solomon, Solon, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were rolled into one, they couldn’t have spoken with more wisdom,” said Mr. Lupton.

“Live and learn,” continued the young lord. “I don’t think anybody has liked the Beargarden so much as I have, but I shall never try this kind of thing again. I shall begin reading blue books tomorrow, and shall dine at the Carlton. Next session I shan’t miss a day in the House, and I’ll bet anybody a fiver that I make a speech before Easter. I shall take to claret at 20s. a dozen, and shall go about London on the top of an omnibus.”

“How about getting married?” asked Dolly.

“Oh;⁠—that must be as it comes. That’s the governor’s affair. None of you fellows will believe me, but, upon my word, I liked that girl; and I’d ’ve stuck to her at last⁠—only that there are some things a fellow can’t do. He was such a thundering scoundrel!”

After a while Sir Felix followed them upstairs, and entered the room as though nothing unpleasant had happened below. “We can make up a rubber;⁠—can’t we?” said he.

“I should say not,” said Nidderdale.

“I shall not play,” said Mr. Lupton.

“There isn’t a pack of cards in the house,” said Dolly. Lord Grasslough didn’t condescend to say a word. Sir Felix sat down with his cigar in his mouth, and the others continued to smoke in silence.

“I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall,” asked Sir Felix. But no one made any answer, and they smoked on in silence. “He hasn’t paid me a shilling yet of the money he owes me.” Still there was not a word. “And I don’t suppose he ever will.” There was another pause. “He is the biggest scoundrel I ever met,” said Sir Felix.

“I know one as big,” said Lord Grasslough⁠—“or, at any rate, as little.”

There was another pause of a minute, and then Sir Felix left the room muttering something as to the stupidity of having no cards;⁠—and so brought to an end his connection with his associates of the Beargarden. From that time forth he was never more seen by them⁠—or, if seen, was never known.

The other men remained there till well on into the night, although there was not the excitement of any special amusement to attract them. It was felt by them all that this was the end of the Beargarden, and, with a melancholy seriousness befitting the occasion, they whispered sad things in low voices, consoling themselves simply with tobacco. “I never felt so much like crying in my life,” said Dolly, as he asked for a glass of brandy-and-water at about midnight. “Good night, old fellows; goodbye. I’m going down to Caversham, and I shouldn’t wonder if I didn’t drown myself.”

How Mr. Flatfleece went to law, and tried to sell the furniture, and threatened everybody, and at last singled out poor Dolly Longestaffe as his special victim; and how Dolly Longestaffe, by the aid of Mr. Squercum, utterly confounded Mr. Flatfleece, and brought that ingenious but unfortunate man, with his wife and small family, to absolute ruin, the reader will hardly expect to have told to him in detail in this chronicle.

XCVII Mrs. Hurtle’s Fate

Mrs. Hurtle had consented at the joint request of Mrs. Pipkin and John Crumb to postpone her journey to New York and to go down to Bungay and grace the marriage of Ruby Ruggles, not so much from any love for the persons concerned, not so much even from any desire to witness a phase of English life, as from an irresistible tenderness towards Paul Montague. She not only longed to see him once again, but she could with difficulty bring herself to leave the land in which he was living. There was no hope for her. She was sure of that. She had consented to relinquish him. She had condoned his treachery to her⁠—and for his sake had even been kind to the rival who had taken her place. But still she lingered near him. And then, though, in all her very restricted intercourse with such English people as she met, she never ceased to ridicule things English, yet she dreaded a return to her own country. In her heart of hearts she liked the somewhat stupid tranquillity of the life she saw, comparing it with the rough tempests of her past days. Mrs. Pipkin, she thought, was less intellectual than any American woman she had ever known; and she was quite sure that no human being so heavy, so slow, and so incapable of two concurrent ideas as John Crumb had ever been produced in the United States;⁠—but, nevertheless, she liked Mrs. Pipkin, and almost loved John Crumb. How different would her life have been could she have met a man who would have been as true to her as John Crumb was to his Ruby!

She loved Paul Montague with all her heart, and she despised herself for loving him. How weak he was;⁠—how inefficient; how unable to seize glorious opportunities; how swathed and swaddled by scruples and prejudices;⁠—how unlike her own countrymen in quickness of apprehension and readiness of action! But yet she loved him for his very faults, telling herself that there was something sweeter in his English manners than in all the smart intelligence of her own land. The man had been false to her⁠—false as hell; had sworn to her and had broken his oath; had ruined her whole life; had made everything blank before her by his treachery! But then she also had not been quite true with him. She had not at first meant to deceive;⁠—nor had he. They had played a game against each other; and he, with all the inferiority of his intellect to weigh him down, had won⁠—because he was a man. She had much time for thinking, and she thought much about these things. He could change his love as often as he