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

she said, with a quick, sharp voice, but with a voice which could be very pleasant when she pleased⁠—taking him by the hand as she spoke, “Paul, say that that letter of yours must go for nothing. Say that it shall be so, and I will forgive everything.”

“I cannot say that,” he replied, laying his hand in hers.

“You cannot say it! What do you mean? Will you dare to tell me that your promises to me are to go for nothing?”

“Things are changed,” said Paul hoarsely. He had come thither at her bidding because he had felt that to remain away would be cowardly, but the meeting was inexpressibly painful to him. He did think that he had sufficient excuse for breaking his troth to this woman, but the justification of his conduct was founded on reasons which he hardly knew how to plead to her. He had heard that of her past life which, had he heard it before, would have saved him from his present difficulty. But he had loved her⁠—did love her in a certain fashion; and her offences, such as they were, did not debar her from his sympathies.

“How are they changed? I am two years older, if you mean that.” As she said this she looked round at the glass, as though to see whether she was become so haggard with age as to be unfit to become this man’s wife. She was very lovely, with a kind of beauty which we seldom see now. In these days men regard the form and outward lines of a woman’s face and figure more than either the colour or the expression, and women fit themselves to men’s eyes. With padding and false hair without limit a figure may be constructed of almost any dimensions. The sculptors who construct them, male and female, hairdressers and milliners, are very skilful, and figures are constructed of noble dimensions, sometimes with voluptuous expansion, sometimes with classic reticence, sometimes with dishevelled negligence which becomes very dishevelled indeed when long out of the sculptors’ hands. Colours indeed are added, but not the colours which we used to love. The taste for flesh and blood has for the day given place to an appetite for horsehair and pearl powder. But Mrs. Hurtle was not a beauty after the present fashion. She was very dark⁠—a dark brunette⁠—with large round blue eyes, that could indeed be soft, but could also be very severe. Her silken hair, almost black, hung in a thousand curls all round her head and neck. Her cheeks and lips and neck were full, and the blood would come and go, giving a varying expression to her face with almost every word she spoke. Her nose also was full, and had something of the pug. But nevertheless it was a nose which any man who loved her would swear to be perfect. Her mouth was large, and she rarely showed her teeth. Her chin was full, marked by a large dimple, and as it ran down to her neck was beginning to form a second. Her bust was full and beautifully shaped; but she invariably dressed as though she were oblivious, or at any rate neglectful, of her own charms. Her dress, as Montague had seen her, was always black⁠—not a sad weeping widow’s garment, but silk or woollen or cotton as the case might be, always new, always nice, always well-fitting, and most especially always simple. She was certainly a most beautiful woman, and she knew it. She looked as though she knew it⁠—but only after that fashion in which a woman ought to know it. Of her age she had never spoken to Montague. She was in truth over thirty⁠—perhaps almost as near thirty-five as thirty. But she was one of those whom years hardly seem to touch.

“You are beautiful as ever you were,” he said.

“Psha! Do not tell me of that. I care nothing for my beauty unless it can bind me to your love. Sit down there and tell me what it means.” Then she let go his hand, and seated herself opposite to the chair which she gave him.

“I told you in my letter.”

“You told me nothing in your letter⁠—except that it was to be⁠—off. Why is it to be⁠—off? Do you not love me?” Then she threw herself upon her knees, and leaned upon his, and looked up in his face. “Paul,” she said, “I have come again across the Atlantic on purpose to see you⁠—after so many months⁠—and will you not give me one kiss? Even though you should leave me forever, give me one kiss.” Of course he kissed her, not once, but with a long, warm embrace. How could it have been otherwise? With all his heart he wished that she would have remained away, but while she knelt there at his feet what could he do but embrace her? “Now tell me everything,” she said, seating herself on a footstool at his feet.

She certainly did not look like a woman whom a man might ill treat or scorn with impunity. Paul felt, even while she was lavishing her caresses upon him, that she might too probably turn and rend him before he left her. He had known something of her temper before, though he had also known the truth and warmth of her love. He had travelled with her from San Francisco to England, and she had been very good to him in illness, in distress of mind and in poverty⁠—for he had been almost penniless in New York. When they landed at Liverpool they were engaged as man and wife. He had told her all his affairs, had given her the whole history of his life. This was before his second journey to America, when Hamilton K. Fisker was unknown to him. But she had told him little or nothing of her own life⁠—but that she was a widow, and that she was travelling to Paris on business. When he left her