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Wheel of Time - Henry James · Henry David Thoreau Classics Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part one of the Wheel of Time. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by David Wales The Wheel of Time by Henry James,
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  Speaker 1: Part one, And your daughter, said Lady Greyswood, tell me
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: about her. She must be nice. Oh, yes, she's nice enough,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: she's a great comfort. Missus Knocker hesitated a moment, and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: then she went on, Unfortunately, she's not good looking, not
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: a bit. Oh that doesn't matter when they're not ill natured,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: rejoined insincerely, Lady Greyswood, who had the remains of a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: great beauty. Oh but poor Fanny is quite extraordinarily plain.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I assure you it does matter. She knows it herself,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: she suffers from it. It's the sort of thing that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: makes a great difference in a girl's life. But if
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: she's charming, if she's clever, said Lady Greyswood, with more
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  Speaker 1: benevolence than logic. I've known plain women who were liked
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Do you mean me, my dear her old friend straightforwardly inquired.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: But I'm not so awfully liked you, Lady Greyswood exclaimed,
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  Speaker 1: why you're grand. I'm not so repulsive as I was
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  Speaker 1: when I was young, perhaps, but that's not saying much
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: as when you were young, laughed Lady Greyswood, you sweet thing.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: You are young. I thought India dried people up. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: when you're a mummy to begin with. Missus Knocker returned
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: with her trick of self abasement. Of course, I've not
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: been such a fool as to keep my children there.
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  Speaker 1: My girl is clever, she continued, but she's afraid to
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  Speaker 1: show it. Therefore you may judge whether with her unfortunate
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: appearance she's charming. She shall show it to me. You
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: must let me do everything for her. Does that include
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  Speaker 1: finding her a husband. I should like her to show
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  Speaker 1: it to some one who marry her. I'll marry her,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: said Lady Greyswood, who was handsomer than ever when she
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  Speaker 1: laughed and looked capable. What a blessing to meet you
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  Speaker 1: this way on the threshold of home. I give you
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  Speaker 1: notice that I shall cling to you. But that's what
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I meant. That's the thing the want of beauty makes
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  Speaker 1: so difficult, As if it were not difficult enough at
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  Speaker 1: the best, My dear child one meets plenty of ugly
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  Speaker 1: women with husbands, Lady Greyswood argued, and often with very
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  Speaker 1: nice ones. Yes, mine is very nice. There are men
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  Speaker 1: who don't mind one's face, for whom beauty isn't indispensable,
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  Speaker 1: but they are rare. I don't understand them. If I'd
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: been a man about to marry, I should have gone
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in for looks. However, the poor child will have something
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: missus Knockerkan continued. Lady Greyswood rested thoughtful eyes on her.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Do you mean she'll be well off? We shall do
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  Speaker 1: everything we can for her. We're not in such misery
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  Speaker 1: as we used to be. We've managed to save in India,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: strange to say, and six months ago my husband came
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  Speaker 1: into money more than we had ever dreamed of by
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the death of his poor brother. We feel quite opulent.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's rather nice, and we should expect to do something
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  Speaker 1: decent for our daughter. I don't mind its being known.
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  Speaker 1: It shall be known, said Lady Greyswood, getting up. Leave
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  Speaker 1: the dear child to me. The old friends embraced for
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the porter of the hotel had commend to say that
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the carriage ordered for her ladyship was at the door.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: They had met in Paris by the merest chance in
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the court of an inn after a separation of years,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: just as Lady Greyswood was going home. She had been
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  Speaker 1: to ex Lebaine early in the season and was resting
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: on her way back to England. Missus Knocker and the General,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: bringing their Eastern exile to a close, had arrived only
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the night before from Marseilles, and were to wait in
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  Speaker 1: Paris for their children. A tall girl and two younger boys,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: who inevitably dissociated from their parents, had been for the
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  Speaker 1: past two years with a devoted aunt, their father's maiden sister,
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  Speaker 1: at Heidelberg. The reunion of the family was to take
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  Speaker 1: place with Jollity in Paris, whither this good lady was
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  Speaker 1: now hurrying with her drilled and demoralized charges. Missus Knocker
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  Speaker 1: had come to England to see them two years before,
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  Speaker 1: and the period at Heidelberg had been planned during this visit.
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  Speaker 1: With the termination of her husband's service, a new life
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  Speaker 1: opened before them all, and they had plans of comprehensive
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  Speaker 1: rejoicing for the summer, plans involving, however, a continuance for
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  Speaker 1: a few months of useful foreign opportunities, during which various
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  Speaker 1: questions connected with the organization of a final home in
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: England were practically to be dealt with. There was to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: be a salubrious house on the continent, taken in some
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood that would both yield a stimulus to plain. Fanny's
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  Speaker 1: French her German was much commended and permit a frequent
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: running over for the General. With these preoccupations, Missus Knocker,
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  Speaker 1: after her delightful encounter with Lady Greyswood, was less keenly
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  Speaker 1: conscious of the variations of destiny than she had been when,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: at the age of twenty that intimate friend of her youth, beautiful, lovable,
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  Speaker 1: and about to be united to a nobleman of ancient name,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: was brightly, almost insolently alienated. The less attractive of the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: two girls had married only several years later, and her
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: marriage had perhaps emphasized the divergence of their ways. To day, however,
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  Speaker 1: the inequality, as Missus Knocker would have phrased it, rather
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: dropped out of the impression produced by the somewhat wasted
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and faded dowager, exquisite still but unexpectedly appealing, who made
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  Speaker 1: no secret an attempt that in an age of such
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  Speaker 1: publicity would have been useless of what she had had,
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  Speaker 1: in vulgar parlance to put up with, or of her
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: having been left badly off. She had spoken of her children,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: she had had no less than six, but she had
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: evidently thought it better not to speak of her husband
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that somehow made up on missus Knocker's part for some
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: ancient aches. It was not till a year after this
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: incident that one day in London, in her little house
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: in Queen Street, Lady Greyswood said to her third son, Morris,
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  Speaker 1: the one she was fondest of, the one who, on
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  Speaker 1: his own side, had given her most signs of affection.
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  Speaker 1: I don't see what there is for you but to
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  Speaker 1: marry a girl of a certain fortune. Oh that's not
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  Speaker 1: my line. I may be an idiot, but I'm not mercenary.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: The young man declared he was not an idiot. But
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: there was an examination rather stiff, indeed, to which without
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: success he had gone up twice. The diplomatic service was
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: close to him by this catastrophe. Nothing else appeared particularly open.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: He was terribly at leisure. There had been a theory,
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  Speaker 1: none the less that he was the ablest of the family.
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  Speaker 1: Two of his brothers had been squeezed into the army,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and had declared rather crudely that they would do their
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  Speaker 1: best to keep Morris out. They were not put to
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  Speaker 1: any trouble in this respect, however, as he professed a
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  Speaker 1: complete indifference to the trade of arms. His mother, who
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: was vague about everything except the idea that people ought
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  Speaker 1: to like him if only for his extraordinary good looks,
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  Speaker 1: thought it strange there shouldn't be some opening for him
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  Speaker 1: in political life, or something to be picked up even
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  Speaker 1: in the city. But no bustling Burrow solicited the advantage
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  Speaker 1: of his protection. No eminent statesman in want of a
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  Speaker 1: secretary took him by the hand, No great commercial house
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  Speaker 1: had been keeping a stool for him. Morris, in a word,
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  Speaker 1: was not approached from any quarter. And meanwhile he was
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  Speaker 1: as irritating as the intending traveler who allows you the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure of looking out his railway connections. Poor Lady Greyswood
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: fumbled the social Bradshaw in vain. The young man had
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  Speaker 1: only one marked taste with which his mother saw no
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  Speaker 1: way to deal. An invincible passion for photography. He was
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  Speaker 1: perpetually taking shots at his friend's But she couldn't open
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  Speaker 1: premises for him in Baker Street. He smoked endless cigarettes.
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  Speaker 1: She was sure they made him languid. She would have
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  Speaker 1: been more displeased with him if she had not felt
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: so vividly that some one ought to do something for him. Nevertheless,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: she almost lost patience at his remark about not being mercenary.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: She was on the point of asking him what he
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: called it to live on his relations, but she checked
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  Speaker 1: the words as she remembered that she herself was the
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  Speaker 1: only one who did much for him. Nevertheless, as she
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  Speaker 1: hated open professions of disinterestedness, she replied that that was
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  Speaker 1: a nonsensical tone. Whatever one would get in such a way,
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  Speaker 1: one would give quite as much, even if it didn't
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  Speaker 1: happen to be money. And when he inquired in return,
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  Speaker 1: what it was, beyond the disgrace of his failures that
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  Speaker 1: she judged a fellow like him would bring to his bride,
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  Speaker 1: she replied that he would bring himself his personal qualities.
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  Speaker 1: She didn't like to be more definite about his appearance,
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  Speaker 1: his name, his descent, his connections, good honest co comodities,
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  Speaker 1: all for which any girl of proper feeling would be
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  Speaker 1: glad to pay. Such a name as that of the
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Glanvilles was surely worth something, and she appealed to him
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  Speaker 1: to try what he could do with it. Surely I
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  Speaker 1: can do something better with it than sell it, said Morris.
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  Speaker 1: I should like, then, very much to hear what, She replied,
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  Speaker 1: very calmly, waiting reasonably for his answer. She waited to
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  Speaker 1: no purpose. The question baffled him, like those of his examinations.
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  Speaker 1: She explained that she meant, of course, that he should
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  Speaker 1: care for the girl, who might easily have a worse
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  Speaker 1: fault than the command of bread and butter. To humor her,
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  Speaker 1: for he was always good natured, he said, after a moment, smiling,
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  Speaker 1: dear mother, is she pretty? Is who pretty? The young
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  Speaker 1: lady you have in your eye? Of course, I see
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  Speaker 1: you've picked her out. She colored slightly at this. She
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  Speaker 1: had planned more gradual revelation for an instant. She thought
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  Speaker 1: of saying that she had only had a general idea
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: for the form of his question embarrassed her, But on
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: reflection she determined to be frank and practical. Well, I
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  Speaker 1: confess I am thinking of a girl, a very nice one,
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  Speaker 1: But she hasn't great beauty. Oh then it's of no use.
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  Speaker 1: But she's delightful and she'll have thirty thousand pounds down,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to say nothing of expectations. Maurice Glanville looked at his mother.
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  Speaker 1: She must be hideous for you to admit it. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: if she's rich, she becomes quite impossible. For how can
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  Speaker 1: a fellow have the air of having been bribed with
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  Speaker 1: gold to marry a monster? Fanny Knocker isn't the least
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  Speaker 1: a monster, and I can see that she'll improve. She's tall,
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  Speaker 1: and she's quite strong, and there's nothing at all disagreeable
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  Speaker 1: about her. Remember that you can't have everything. I thought
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you contended that I could, said Marris, amused at his
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: mother's description of her young friend's charms. He had never
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: heard any one damned as regards that sort of thing.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: With fainter praise, he declared that he would be perfectly
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  Speaker 1: capable of marrying a poor girl, but that the prime
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  Speaker 1: necessity in any young person he should think of would
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: be the possession of a face, to put it, at
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  Speaker 1: the least, that it would give him positive pleasure to
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  Speaker 1: look at. I don't ask for much, but I do
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  Speaker 1: ask for beauty, he went on. My eye must be gratified.
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  Speaker 1: I must have a wife I can photograph Lady Greyswood
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  Speaker 1: was tempted to answer that he himself had good looks
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  Speaker 1: enough to make a handsome couple, but she withheld the
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  Speaker 1: remark as injudicious, though effective, for it was a part
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  Speaker 1: of her son's amiability that he appeared to have no
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  Speaker 1: conception of his plastic side. He would have been disgusted
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  Speaker 1: if she had put it forward. If he had the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: ideal he had just described. It was not because his
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: own profile was his standard. What she herself saw in
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: it was a force for coercing heiresses. She had, however,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: to be patient, and she promised herself to be adroit,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: which was all the easier as she really liked Fanny Knocker.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: The girl's parents had at last taken a house in
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  Speaker 1: Innismore Gardens, and the friend of her mother's youth had
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  Speaker 1: been confronted with the question of redeeming the pledges uttered
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in Paris. This unsophisticated and united family, with relations to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: visit and schoolboys holidays to outlive, had spent the winter
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in the country and had but lately begun to talk
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of itself extravagantly, of course, through missus Knocker's droll lips
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  Speaker 1: as open to social attentions. Lady Greyswood had not been
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: false to her vows. She had, on the contrary, recognized
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  Speaker 1: from the first that if he could only be made
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  Speaker 1: to see it, Fanny Knocker would be just the person
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  Speaker 1: to fill out poor Morris's blanks. She had kept this
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  Speaker 1: confidence to herself, but it had made her very kind
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  Speaker 1: to the young lady. One of the forms of this
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  Speaker 1: kindness had been an ingenuity in keeping her from coming
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to Queen Street until Morris should have been prepared. Was
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: he to be regarded as prepared now that he asserted
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: he would have nothing to do with miss Knocker. This
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was a question that worried Lady Greyswood, who at any
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: rate said to herself that she had told him the worst.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Her idea had been to sound her old friend only
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: after the young people should have met and Fanny should
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: have fallen in love. Such a catastrophe for Fanny belonged
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: for Lady Greyswood to that order of convenience that she
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: could always take for granted. She had found the girl,
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  Speaker 1: as she expected, ugly and awkward, but had also discovered
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a charm of character in her intelligent timidity. No one
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: knew better than this observant woman. How thankless a task
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: in general it was in London to take out a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: plain girl. She had seen the nicest creatures in the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: brutality of balls participate only through wistful, almost tearful eyes.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Her little drawing room at intimate hours had been shaken
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: by the confidences of desperate mothers. None the less, she
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: felt sure that Fanny's path would not be rugged. Thirty
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: thousand pounds were a fine set of features, and her
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: anxiety was rather on the score of the expectations of
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the young lady's parents. Missus Knocker had dropped remarks suggestive
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: of a high imagination, of the conviction that there might
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: be a real efficacy in what they were doing for
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: their daughter. The danger, in other words, might well be
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: that no younger son need apply, a possibility that made
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Lady Greyswood take all her precautions. The acceptability of her
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: favorite child was consistent with the rejection of those of
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: other people, on which indeed it even directly depended. She remembered,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, the proverb about taking your horse
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to the water. The crystalline spring of her young friend's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: homage might overflow, but she couldn't compel her boy to drink.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: The clever way was to break down his prejudice to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: get him to consent to give poor Fanny a chance. Therefore,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: if she was careful not to worry him, she let
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: him see her project as something patient and deeply wise.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: She had the air of waiting, resignedly for the day
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: on which, in the absence of other solutions, he would
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: say to her, well, let me have a look at
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: my fate. Meanwhile, moreover, she was nothing if not conscientious,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and as she had made up her mind about the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: girl's susceptibility, she had a scruple against exposing her. This
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: exposure would not be justified so long as Morris's theoretic
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: rigor should remain unabated. She felt virtuous in carrying her
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: scruple to the point of rudeness. She knew that Jane
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Knocker wondered why, though so attentive in a hundred ways,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: she had never definitely included the poor child in any
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: invitations to Queen Street. There came a moment when it
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: gave her pleasure to suspect that her old friend had
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: begun to explain this omission by the idea of a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: positive exaggeration of good faith, an honest recognition of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: detrimental character of the young man in ambush. There As Morris,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: though much addicted to kissing his mother at home, never
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: dangled about her in public, he had remained a mythical
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: figure to missus Knocker, he had been abs culpably. There
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: was a touch of the inevitable incivility in it. On
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: each of the occasions on which, after their arrival in London,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: she and her husband dined with Lady Greyswood. This astute
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: woman knew that her delightful Jane was whimsical enough to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: be excited good humoredly by a mystery. She might very
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: well want to make Morris's acquaintance in just the degree
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: in which she guessed that his mother's high sense of
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: honor kept him out of the way. Moreover, she desired
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: intensely that her daughter should have the sort of experience
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: that would help her to take confidence. Lady Greyswood knew
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that no one had as yet asked the girl to dinner,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and that this particular attention was the one for which
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: her mother would be most grateful. No sooner had she
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: arrived at these illuminations than with deep diplomacy. She requested
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the pleasure of the company of her dear Jane and
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the jem General. Missus Knocker accepted with delight. She always
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: accepted with delight, so that nothing remained for Lady Greyswood
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: but to make sure of Morris in advance. After this
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: was done, she had only to wait when the dinner,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: on a day very near at hand, took place. She
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: had jumped at the first evening on which the Knockers
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: were free. She had the gratification of seeing her prevision
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: exactly fulfilled. Her whimsical Jane had thrown the game into
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: her hands, had been taken at the very last moment
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: with one of her Indian headaches, and infinitely apologetic and explanatory,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: had hustled poor Fanny off with the General. The girl,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: flurried and frightened by her responsibility, sat at dinner next
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to Morris, who behaved beautifully, not in the least as
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the victim of a trick. And when a fortnight later,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Lady Greyswood was able to divine that her mind from
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: that evening had been filled with a virginal ecstasy. She
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: was also fortunately able to feel serenely, delightfully Guiltless and
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of Part one, Part two of The Wheel of Time
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: by Henry James. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: She knew this fact about Fanny's mind, she believed some
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: time before Jane Knocker knew it. But she also had
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: reason to think that Jane Knocker had known it for
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: some time before she spoke of it. It was not
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: till the middle of June, after a succession of encounters
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: between the young people, that her old friend came one
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: morning to discuss the circumstance. Missus Knocker asked her if
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: she suspected it, and she promptly replied that it had
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: never occurred to her. She added that she was extremely sorry,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and that it had probably, in the first instance, been
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the fault of that injudicious dinner Ah the day of
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: my headache, my miserable headache, said the visitor. Yes, very
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: likely that did it. He's so dreadfully good looking, poor child.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: He can't help that, neither can I, Lady Greyswood ventured
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to add. He comes by it. Honestly. He seems very nice.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: He's nice enough, but he hasn't a farthing, you know,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and his expectations are nil. They considered, they turned the
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: matter about. They wondered what they had better do. In
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the first place. There was no room for doubt. Of course,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: missus Knocker hadn't sounded the girl. But a mother, a
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: true mother, was never reduced to that. If Fanny was
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in every relation of life so painfully, so constitutionally awkward,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the still depths of her shining, of her dissimulation. Even
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: in such a predicament as this might easily be imagined,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: she would give no sign that she could possibly smother.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: She would say nothing and do nothing, watching herself poor child,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: with trepidation. But she would suffer. And some day, when
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the question of her future should really come up, it might,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: after all, in the form of some good proposal, they
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: would find themselves beating against a closed door. That was
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: what they had to think of. That was why missus
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Knocker had come over. Her old friend Cross examined her
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: with a troubled face, but she was very impressive with
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: her reasons, her intuitions. I'll send him away in a moment,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: if you'd like that, Lady Greyswood said, at last, I'll
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: try and get him to go abroad. Her visitor made
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: no direct reply to this, and no reply at all
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: for some moments. What does he expect to do? What
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: does he want to do? She asked, Oh, poor boy,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: he's looking, he's trying to decide. He asks nothing of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: any one, if he would only knock at a few doors.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: But he's too proud. Do you call him very clever?
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Fanny's mother demanded, Oh, yes, decidedly and good and kind
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and true. But he has been unlucky. Of course he
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: can't bear her, said missus Knocker with a little dry laugh.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Lady Greyswood stared, then she broke out, Do you mean
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you'd be willing? He's very charming? Ah, but you must
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: have great ideas. He's very well connected, said missus Knocker,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: snapping the tight elastic on her umbrella. Oh my, dear
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Jane connected. Lady Greyswood gave a sigh of the sweetest irony.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: He's connected with you to begin with. Lady Greyswood to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: put out her hand and held her visitors for a moment.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Of course, it isn't as if he were a different
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: sort of a person. Of course I should like it,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: she added, does he dislike her very much? Lady Greyswood
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: looked at her friend with a smile. He resembles Fanny.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: He doesn't tell, But what would her father say? She
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: went on, he doesn't know it. You've not talked with him.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Missus Knocker hesitated a moment. He thinks she's all right.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Both the ladies laughed a little at the density of men.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Then the visitor said, I wanted to see you first.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: This circumstance gave Lady Greyswood food for thought. It suggested
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: comprehensively that, in spite of a probable deficiency of zeal
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: on the General's part, the worthy man would not be
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the great obstacle. She had begun so quickly to turn
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: over in her mind the various ways in which this
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: new phase of the business might make it possible the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: real obstacle should be surmounted. That she scarcely heard her
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: companion say next, the General will only want his daughter
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to be happy. He has no definite ambition for her.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I dare say Morris could make him like him. It
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: was something more said by her companion about Morris that
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: sounded sharply through her reverie. But unless the idea appeals
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: to him a bit, there's no use talking about it
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: at this Lady Greyswood spoke with decision, it shall appeal
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to him, leave it to me. Kiss your dear child
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: for me, she added. As the ladies embraced and separated.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: In the course of the day, she made up her mind,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and when she again broached the question to her son,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it befell that very evening she felt that she stood
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: on firmer ground. She began by mentioning to him that
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: her dear old friend had the same charming dream for
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the girl that she had. She sketched with a light
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: hand a picture of their preconcerted happiness in the union
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of their children. When he replied that he couldn't, for
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the life of him imagine what the knockers could see
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in a poor beggar of a younger son who had
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: publicly come a cropper, she took pains to prove that
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: he was as good as any one else, and much
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: better than many of the young men to whom persons
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of sense were often willing to confide their daughters. She
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: had been in such tribulation over the circumstance announced to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: her in the morning, not knowing whether in her present enterprise,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: to keep it back or put it forward. If Morris
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: should happen not to take it in the right way.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: It was the sort of thing that might dish the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: whole experiment. He might be bored, he might be annoyed,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: he might be horrified. There was no limit in such
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: cases to the perversity, to the possible brutality of even
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: the most amiable man. On the other hand, he might
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: be pleased, touched, flattered, if he didn't dislike the girl
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: too much. Lady grace Wood could indeed imagine that it
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: might be unpleasant to know that a person who was
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: disagreeable to you was in love with you, So that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: there was just that risk to run. She determined to
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: run it, if only there should be absolutely no other
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: card to play. Meanwhile, she said, don't you see now
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: how intelligent she is in her quiet way, and how
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: perfect she is at home, without any nonsense or affectation
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: or ill nature. She's not a bit stupid. She's remarkably clever.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: She can do a lot of things. She has no
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: end of talents. Many girls with a quarter of her
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: abilities would make five times the show. My dear mother,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: she's a great swell. I freely admit it. She's far
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: too good for me. What in the world puts it
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: into your two heads that she would look at me.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: At this, Lady Greyswood was tempted to speak, but after
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: an instant she said instead, she has looked at you,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and you've seen how You've seen her several times now,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and she has been remarkably nice to you. Nice. Ah,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: poor girl, she's frightened to death. Believe me, I read her.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Lady Greyswood replied, she knows she has money and she
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: thinks I'm after it. She thinks I'm a ravening wolf,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and she's scared. I happen to know as a fact
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that she's in love with you. Before she could check herself,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Lady Greyswood had played her card, and though she held
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: her breath a little after doing so, she felt that
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: it had been a good moment. If I hadn't known it,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: she hastened further to declare, I should never have said
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: another word. Morris burst out, laughing, how in the world
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: did she know it? When she put the evidence before him,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: she had the place pleasure of seeing that he listened
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: without irritation, and this emboldened her to say, don't you
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: think you could try to like her? Morris was lounging
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: on a sofa opposite to her jocouse, but embarrassed, he
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: had thrown back his head, and while he stretched himself,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: his eyes wandered over the upper expanse of the room.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: It's very kind of her and of her mother, and
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I'm much obliged in all that, though a fellow feels
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: rather an ass in talking about such a thing. Of course,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: also I don't pretend, before such a proof of wisdom
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that I think her in the least a fool. But oh, dear,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and the young man broke off with laughing impatience, as
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: if he had too much to say. His mother waited
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: an instant, then she uttered a persuasive interrogative sound, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: he went on. It's only a pity. She's so awful,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: so so awful, murmured Lady Greyswood. Dear mother, She's about
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: as ugly a woman as ever turned round on you.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: If there were only just a touch or to less
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of it. Lady Greyswood got up. She stood, looking in
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: silence at the tinted shade of the lamp. She remained
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: in this position so long that he glanced at her.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: He was struck with the sadness in her face. He
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: would have been in error. However, if he had suspected
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: that this sadness was assumed for the purpose of showing
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: him that she was wounded by his resistance, for the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: reflection that his last words caused her to make was
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: as disinterested as it was melancholy. Here was an excellent,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a charming girl, a girl, she was sure, with a
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: rare capacity for devotion, whose future was reduced to nothing
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: by the mere accident in her face of a certain
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: want of drawing. A man could settle her fate with
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: a laugh, could give her away with a snap of
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: his fingers. She seemed to see Morris administer to poor
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Fanny's image the little displeased shove with which he would
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: have disposed of an ill seasoned dish. Moreover, he greatly exaggerated.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Her heart grew heavy with a sense of the hardness
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of the lot of women, and when she looked again
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: at her son, there were tears in her eyes that
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: startled him. Poor girl, Poor girl, she simply sighed, in
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a tone that was to reverberate in his mind, and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to constitute, in doing so, a real appeal to his imagination.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: After a moment, she added, we'll talk no more about
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: her no, no, all the same. She went three days
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: later to see Missus Knocker and said to her, my
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: dear creature, I think it's all right. Do you mean
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: he'll take us up, he'll come and see you, and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you must give him plenty of chances. What Lady Greyswood
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: would have liked to be able to say, crudely and comfortably,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: was he'll try to manage it. He promises to do
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: what he can. What she did say, however, was he's
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: greatly prepossessed in the dear child's favor. Then I dare
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: say he'll be very nice. If I didn't think he'd
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: behave like a gentleman, I wouldn't raise a finger. The
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: more he sees of her, the more he'll be sure
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to like her. Of course, with poor Fanny, that's the
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: only thing one can build on, said missus Knocker. There's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: so much to get over, Lady Greyswood hesitated a moment.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Morris has got over it. But I should tell you
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: that at first he doesn't want it known, doesn't want
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: what known, why the footing on which he comes, you see,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it's just the least bit experimental. For what do you
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: take me? Asked missus Knocker. The child shall never dream
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: that anything has ever passed between us. No more, of course,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: shall her father. It's too delightful of you to leave
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: it that way, Lady Greyswood replied. We must surround her
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: happiness with every safeguard. Missus Knocker sat pensive for some moments,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: so that if nothing comes of it, there's no harm done.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: That idea that nothing may come of it makes one
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a little nervous, she added. Of course I can't absolutely
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: answer for my poor boy, said Lady Greyswood, with just
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the faintest ring of impatience. But he's much affected by
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: what he knows. I told him. That's what moves him.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: He must, of course be perfectly free. The great thing
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: is for her not to know. Missus Knocker considered, are
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: you very sure? She had apparently had a profounder second thought, Why,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: my dear, with the risk, isn't the risk, after all
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: greater the other way? Mayn't it help the matter on?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Mayn't it do the poor child a certain degree of good?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: The idea that, as you say, he's prepossessed in her favor,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: it would perhaps cheer her up, as it were, and
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: encourage her so that by the very fact of being
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: happier about herself, she may make a better impression. That's
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: what she wants, poor thing to be helped to hold
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: up her head, to take herself more seriously, to believe
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: that people can like her. And fancy when it's a
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: case of such a beautiful young man who's all ready to. Yes,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: he's all ready to, Lady greys Would conceded. Of course,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it's a question for your own discretion. I can't advise you,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: for you know your child, but it seems to me
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a case for tremendous caution. Oh trust me for that,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: said missus Knocker. We shall be very kind to him,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: she smiled as her visitor got up. He'll appreciate that,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: but it's too nice of you to leave it. So
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: missus Knocker gave a hopeful shrug. He has only to
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: be civil to blake. Ah, he isn't a brute, Lady
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Greyswood exclaimed, caressing her. After this, she passed a month
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: of no little anxiety. She asked her son no question,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and for two or three weeks he offered her no
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: other information than to say two or three times that
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: miss Knocker could really ride. But she learned from her
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: old friend everything she wanted to know. Immediately after the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: conference of the two ladies, Morris in the row had
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: taken an opportunity of making up to the girl. She
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: rode every day with her father, and Morris rode, though
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: possessed of nothing in life, to put a leg across,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: and he had been so well received that this proved
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a custom. He had a canter with
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the young lady most days in the week, and when
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: they parted, it was usually to meet again in the evening.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: His relations with the household in Innismore Gardens were indeed
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: not left greatly to his initiative. He became on the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: spot the subject of perpetual invitations and arrangements, the center
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: of the friendliest maneuvers, so that Lady Greyswood was struck
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: with Jane Knocker's feverish energy in the good cause, the ingenuity,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the bribery, the cunning that an exemplary mother might be
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: inspired to practice. She herself did nothing. She left it
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: all to poor Jane, and this perhaps gave her, for
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the moment a sense of contemplative superiority. She wondered if
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: she would, in any circumstance have plotted so almost fiercely
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: for one of her children. She was glad her old
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: friend's design had her full approbation. She held her breath
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: a little when she said to herself, Suppose I hadn't
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: liked it. Suppose it had been for Chumley. Chumley was
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the present Lord Greyswood, whom his mother still called by
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: his earlier designation. Fanny Knocker's thirty thousand would have been
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: by no means enough for Chumley. Lady Greyswood, in spite
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of her suspense, was detached enough to be amused when
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: her accomplice told her that Blake had said that Marris
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: really could ride. The two mothers thanked God for the writing.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: The writing would see them through. Lady Greyswood had watched
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Fanny narrowly in the park, where in the saddle she
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: looked no worse than lots of girls. She had no
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: idea how Marris got his mounts. She knew Chumley had
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: none to give him, but there were directions in which
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: she would have encouraged him to incur on most any liability.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: He was evidently amused and beguiled. He fell into comfortable
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: attitudes on the soft cushions that were laid for him
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: and partook with relish of the dainties that were served.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: He had his fill of the theaters, of the opera
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: entertainments of which he was fond. She could see he
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: didn't care for the sort of people he met in
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Innismore gardens. But this didn't matter so much as that
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: she didn't ask of him. She knew that when he
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: should have something to tell her, he would speak, And
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: meanwhile she pretended to be a thousand miles away. The
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: only thing that worried her was that he had dropped photography.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: She said to missus Knocker more than once. Does he
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: make love? That's what I want to know, to which
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: this lady replied with her incongruous drollery, My dear, how
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: can I make out he so little like Blake? But
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: she added that she believed Fanny was intensely happy. Lady
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Greyswood had been struck with the girls looking so and
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: she rejoiced to be able to declare, in perfectly good
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: faith that she thought her greatly improved. Didn't I tell you?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Returned missus Knocker to this with a certain accent of triumph.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: It made Lady Greyswood nervous for She took it to
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: mean that Fanny had had a hint from her mother
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: of Morris's possible intentions. She was afraid to ask her
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: old friend directly if this were definitely true. Poor Fanny's
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: improvement was after all, not again sufficient to make up
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: for the cruelty that would reside in the sense of
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: being rejected. One day in Queen Street, Morris said, in
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: an abrupt, conscientious way, you were right about Fanny Knocker.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: She's a remarkably clever and a thoroughly nice girl. A
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: fellow could really talk with her. But oh mother, well,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: my dear, the young man's face wore a strange smile.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Oh mother, he expressively, quite tragically repeated. But it's all right,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: he presently added, in a different tone, and Lady Greyswood
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: was reassured. This confidence, however, received a shock a little later,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: in the evening of a day that had been intensely hot,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: A torrid wave had passed over London, and in the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: suffocating air the pleasures of the season had put on
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: a purple face. Lady Greyswood, whose own fine lowness of
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: tone no temperature could effect, knew in her bedimmed drawing
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: room exactly the detail of her son's engagements. She pitied
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: him she had managed to keep clear. She had, in
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: particular a vision of a distribution of prizes by one
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: of the princesses in a big horticultural show. She saw
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the sweltering starers, and at what after all under a
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: huge glass roof, while there passed before her in a
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: blur of Crimson, the glimpse of uncomfortable cheeks under an
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: erratic white bonnet, together also with the sense that some
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: of Jane Knocker's ideas of pleasure were of the oddest.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: She had such lecunes, and some of the ordeals to
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: which she exposed Poor Fanny singularly ill chosen. Morris came
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: in perspiring but pale. Nothing could make him ugly to
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: dress for dinner, And though he was in a great hurry,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: he found time to pant, oh, mother, what I'm going
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: through for you? Do you mean rushing about? So in
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: this weather we shall have a change to night, I hope.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: So there are people for whom it doesn't do at all. Ah,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: not a bit, said Morris, with a life that she
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: didn't fancy. But he went upstairs before she could think
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: of anything to reply. And after he had dressed, he
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: passed out without speaking to her again. The next morning,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: on entering her room, her maid mentioned as a delicate
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: duty that mister Glanville, whose door stood wide open and
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: whose bed was untouched, had apparently not yet come in, while, however,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: her ladyship was in the first freshness of meditation on
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: this singular fact. The morning's letters were brought up, and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: as it happened that the second envelope she glanced at
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: was addressed in Morris's hand, she was quickly in possession
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of an explanation still more startling than his absence. He
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: wrote from a club at nine o'clock the previous evening
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: to announce that he was taking the night train for
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: the continent. He hadn't dressed for dinner. He had dressed otherwise,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: and having stuffed a few things with surreptitious hate into
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a gladstone bag, had slipped unperceived, out of the house
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and into a hansom. He had sent to Ennismore Gardens
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: from his club an apology, a request he should not
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: be waited for, and now he should have just time
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: to get to Charing Cross. He was off. He didn't
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: know where, but he was off, he did know why.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: You'll know why, dear mother too. I think this wonderful
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: communication continued. You'll know why because I haven't deceived you.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I've done what I could, but I've broken down. I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: felt today that it was no use. There was a
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: moment at that beastly exhibition when I saw it, when
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the question was settled, the truth rolled over me in
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: a stifling wave. After that, I made up my mind.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: There was nothing to do but to bolt. I meant
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: to put it off till tomorrow, and to tell you first,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: But while I was dressing to day, it struck me
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: irresistibly that my true course is to break now, never
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: to enter the house or go near her again. I
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: was afraid of a scene with you about this. I
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: haven't uttered a word of love to her. Heaven save us.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: But my position this afternoon became definitely false, and that
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: fact prescribes the course I am taking. You shall hear
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: from me again in a day or two. I have
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: the greatest regard for her, but I can't bear to
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: look at her. I don't care a bit for money,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: but hang it, I must have beauty. Please send me
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: twenty pounds post restante Boulogne. What I want Jane is
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: to get at this, Lady Greyswood said later in the day,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: with an austerity that was sensible, even through her tears.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Does the child know or doesn't she? What was at stake?
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: She hasn't an inkling of it? How should she? I
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: recognize that it was best not to tell her, and
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't on this as missus Knocker's tears had also flowed.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Lady Grayswood kissed her, but she didn't believe her. Fanny herself, however,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the season proved inscrutable. She's a character,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Lady Greyswood reflected with admiration. In September in Yorkshire, the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: girl was taken seriously ill end of Part two, Part
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: three of The Wheel of Time by Henry James. This
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. After luncheon at
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the Crisfords, the big Sunday banquets of twenty people and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a dozen courses, the men lingering a little in the
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: dining room, dawdling among displaced chairs and dropped napkins, while
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the ladies rustled away. Ended by shuffling in casuals up
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: to the studio, where coffee was served, and where presently
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: before the cigarettes were smoked out, Missus Crisford always reappeared
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: to usher in her contingent. The studio was high and handsome,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and luncheon at the Chrisfords was in the common esteem
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: more amusing than almost anything else in London except dinner.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: It was Bohemia with excellent service, Bohemia, not debtor but creditor. Upstairs,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the pictures, finished or nearly finished, and arranged in a
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: shining row, gave an obviousness of topic, so that conversation
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: could easily touch bottom. Maurice Glanville, who had never been
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: in the house before, looked about and wondered. He was
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: struck with the march of civilization, the rise of the
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: social tide. There were new notes in English life, which
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: he caught quickly with his fresh sense during his long
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: absence twenty years of France and Italy. All sorts of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: things had happened in his youth in England. Artists and
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: authors and actors, people of that general kind were not
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: nearly so smart. Morris Glanville was forty nine to day,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: and he thought a great deal of his youth. He
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: regretted it. He missed it. He tried to beckon it back,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: but the differences in London made him feel that it
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: had gone forever. There might perhaps be some sudden compensation
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: in being fifty some turn of the dim telescope, some
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: view from the brow of the hill. It was a round, gross,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: stupid number, which probably would make one pompous, make one
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: think one's self venerable. Meanwhile, at any rate, it was
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: odious to be forty nine. Morris observed the young now
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: more and he had ever done observed them, That is,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: as the young. He wished he could have had a
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: son to be twenty with again. His daughter was only eighteen,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: But fond as he was of her, he couldn't live
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: instinctively into her girlishness. It was not that there was
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: not plenty of it, for she was simple, sweet, indefinite,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: without the gifts that the boy would have had the gifts,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: what had become of them, now that he himself used
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: to have. The youngest person present before the ladies came
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: in was the young man who had sat next to Vera,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: and whom, being on the same side of the long table,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: he had not had under his eye. Morris noticed him.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Now noticed that he was very good looking, fair and
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: fresh and clean, impeccable in his straight smoothness. Also that,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: apparently knowing none of the other guests, and moving by
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: himself about the studio with visible interest in the charming
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: things he had, the modesty of his age and his position.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: He had, however, something more besides, which had begun to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: prompt the observer to speak to him, in order to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: hear the sound of his voice, a strange, elusive resemblance
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: lost in the profile, but flickering straight out of the
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: full face, to some one Morris had known for a minute.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Glanville was worried by it. He had a sense that
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: a name would suddenly come to him if he should
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: see the lips in motion. But as he was on
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the point of laying the ghost by an experiment, Missus
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Chrisford led in her companions. His daughter was among them,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: and in company, as he was constantly anxious about her
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: appearance and her attitude, she had at moments the faculty
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of drawing his attention from everything else. The poor child,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: the only fruit of his odd romantic union, the coupdefoudras
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: of his youth with her strangely beautiful mother, whose own
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: mother had been a Russian and who had died in
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: giving birth to her. His short, colorless, insignificant Vera was excessively,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: incorrigibly plain. She had been the disappointment of his life,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: but he greatly pitied her. Her want of beauty with
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: her antecedents had been one of the strangest tricks of fate.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: She was acutely conscious of it, and, being good and docile,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: would have liked to please. She did sometimes, to her
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: father's delight. In spite of everything. She had been educated
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: abroad on foreign lines, near her mother's people. He had
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: brought her to England to take her out, to do
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: what he could do for her. But he was not
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: unaware that in England her manners, which had been thought
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: very pretty on the continent, would strike some persons as artificial.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: They were exactly what her mother's had been. They made
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: up to a certain extent for the want of other resemblance.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: An extreme solicitude at any rate as to the impression
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: they might make, was the source of his habit in
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: London of watching her covertly. He tried to see it
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: a given moment, how she looked, if she were happy.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: It was always with an intention of encouragement, and there
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: was a frequent exchange between them of little, invisible affectionate signs.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: She wore charming clothes, but she was terribly short. In England,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the girls were gigantic, and it was only the tallest
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: who were noticed. Their manners alas had nothing to do
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: with it. Many of them indeed hadn't any manners. As
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: soon as he had got near Vera, he said to her,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: scanning her through his single glass from head to foot,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: who is the young man who sat next you, the
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: one at the other end of the room. I don't know, Papa,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't catch it. Was he civil? Did he talk
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: to you? Oh a great deal, Papa, about all sorts
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: of things. Something in the tone of her voice made
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: him look with greater intensity and even with greater tenderness
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: than usual into her little, dim green eyes. Then you're
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: all right, you're getting on. She gave her effusive smile,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the one that perhaps wouldn't do in England. Oh beautifully, Papa,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: everyone so kind. She never complained, was a brave little optimist,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: full of sweet resources. But he had detected to day
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: as soon as he looked at her, the particular shade
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of her content it made him continue after an hesitation.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: He didn't say anything about his relations, anything that could
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: give you a clue, vera thought, a moment, not that
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I can remember, unless that mister Crisford is painting the
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: portrait of his mother. Ah, there it is, the girl exclaimed,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: looking across the room at a large picture on an
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: easel which the young man had just approached, and from
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: which their host had removed the drapery that covered it.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Maurice Glanville had observed this drapery, and as the artist
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: unveiled the canvass with a flourish, he saw that he
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: had been waiting for the ladies to show it, to
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: produce a surprise, a grand effect. Everyone moved towards it,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: and Morris, with his daughter beside him, recognized that the
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: production a portrait was striking a great success for Chrisford,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the figure down to the knees, with an extraordinary look
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: of life of a tall, handsome woman of middle age
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: in full dress in black. Yet he saw it for
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: the moment vaguely through a preoccupation, that of a discovery
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: which he had just made, and which had recalled to
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: him an incident of his youth, his juxtaposition in London
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: at a dinner to a girl insurmountably charmless to him,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: who had fallen in love with him, so that she
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: was nearly to die of it within the first five
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: minutes before he had even spoken, as he had subsequently
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: learned from a communication made him by his poor mother,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: a reminder uttered with a pointless bitterness that he had
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: failed to understand and accompanied with unsuspected details. Much later,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: too late, long after his marriage and shortly before her death,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: he said to himself that he must look out, and
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: he wondered if poor Vera would also be insurmountably charmless
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: to the good looking young man. But what a likeness, Papa,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: what a likeness? He heard her murmur at his elbow
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: with suppressed excitement. How can you tell, my dear if
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: you haven't seen her, I mean, to the gentleman the sun.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Everyone was exclaiming, how wonderfully clever, how beautiful, And under
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: cover of the agitation and applause, Morris Glanville had drawn
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: nearer the picture. The movement had brought him close to
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the young man of whom he had been talking with Vera,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and who, with his happy eyes on the painted figure
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: seemed to smile, an acknowledgment of the artist's talent and
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: of the sitter's charm. Do you know who the lady is,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Morris said to him. He turned his bright face to
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: his interlocutor. Oh she's my mother, Missus Tregant, isn't it wonderful?
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: His eyes, his lips, his voice flashed a light into
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Glanville's uncertainty. The tormenting resemblance was simply a prolonged echo
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of Fanny knocker in whose later name precisely he recognized
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the name pronounced by the young man. Maurice. Glanvill stared
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: in some bewilderment. This stately splendid lady with a face
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: so vivid that it was handsome? Was what that unfortunate
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: girl had become? The eyes, as if they picked him out,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: looked at him strangely from the canvass. The face, with
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: all its difference, asserted itself, and he felt himself turning
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: as red as if he had been in the presence
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: of the original. Young Tregant, pleased and proud, had given
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: way to the pressing spectators, placing himself at Vera's other side,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: and Morris heard the girl exclaim to him in one
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: of her pretty effusions, how beautiful she must be, and
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: how amiable she is. Indeed, it's not a bit flattered.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: And while Morris still stared, more and more mystified. For flattered.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Flattered was the unspoken solution in which he had instantly
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: taken refuge. His neighbor continued, I wish you could know her,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: you must, She's delightful. She couldn't come here to day,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: they asked her. She has people lunching at home. I
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: should be so glad. Perhaps we may meet her somewhere,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: said Vera. If I ask her, and if you'll let her,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sure she'll come to see you. The young man responded.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Morris had glanced at him, while the face of the
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: portrait watched them with the oddest, the grimmest effect. He
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: was filled with a confusion of feelings, asking himself half
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: a dozen questions at once. Was young dragant with his
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: attentive manner making up to Vera? Was he going out
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: of his way in answering for his mother's civility? Little
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: did he know what he was taking on himself. Above all,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: was Fanny Knocker to day, this extraordinary figure, extraordinary in
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the light of the early plainness that had made him bold,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: he became conscious of an extreme curiosity, an irresistible desire
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: to see her. Oh, Papa, said Vera. Mister Dregant's so kind.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: He's so good as to promise us a visit from
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: his mother. The young man's friendly eyes were still on
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: the child's face. I'll tell her all about you. Oh,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: if I ask her, she'll come, he repeated. Does she
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: do everything you ask her? The girl inquired, she likes
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: to know my friends. Morris hesitated, wondering if he were
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: in the presence of a smooth, young humbug to whom
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: compliments cost nothing, or in that of an impression really
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: made made by his little fluttered unpopular Vera. He had
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: a horror of exposing his child to risks, but his
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: curiosity was greater than his caution. Your mother mustn't come
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: to us. It's our duty to go to her, he
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: said to mister Dregant. I had the hon honor of
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: knowing her a long time ago. Her mother and mine
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: were intimate friends. Be so good as to mention my
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: name to her, that of Morris Glanville, and to tell
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: her how glad I have been to make your acquaintance,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: and now my dear child, he added to Vera, we
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: must take leave. During the rest of that day, it
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: never occurred to him that there might be an awkwardness
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: in his presenting himself, even after many years before, a
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: person with whom he had broken, as he had broken
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: with Fanny Knocker. This was partly because he held justly
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: enough that he had never committed himself, and partly because
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: the intensity of his desire to measure with his own
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: eyes the change represented, misrepresented perhaps by the picture, was
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: a force greater than any embarrassment. His mother had told
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: him that the poor girl had cruelly suffered, but there
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: was no present intentionensity in that idea. With her expensive portrait,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: her grand heir, her handsome son, she somehow embodied success,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: whereas he himself, standing for mere bereavement and disappointment, was
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: a failure not to be surpassed with Vera. That evening
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: he was very silent. She saw him smoke endless cigarettes
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: and wondered what he was thinking of. She guessed, indeed,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: but she was too subtle a little person to attempt
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: to fall in with his thoughts, or to be willing
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: to betray her own by asking him randon questions about
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Missus Tregant. She had expressed as they came away from
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: their luncheon party, a natural surprise at the coincidence of
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: his having known the mother of her amusing neighbor. But
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: the only other words that dropped from her on the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: subject were contained in a question that, before she went
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: to bed, she put to him with abrupt gaiety, while
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: she carefully placed a marker in a book she had
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: not been reading. When is it then that we're to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: call upon this wonderful old friend, He looked at her
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: through the smoke of his cigarette. I don't know. We
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: must wait a little to allow her time to give
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: some sign. Oh, I see, and Vera took leave of
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: him with one of her sincere little kisses. And of
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Part three, Part four of The Wheel of Time by
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Henry James. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: He had not long to wait for the sign from
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Missus Tregant. It arrived the very next morning in the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: shape of an invitation to dinner. This invitation was immediately accepted,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: but a fortnight was still to intervene. A trial. To
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: more Glanville's patience, the promptitude of the demonstration gave him pleasure.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: It showed him no bitterness had survived. What place was there,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: indeed for resentment, since she married and had given birth
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: to children, and thought sufficiently well of the face God
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: had given her to desire to hand it on to
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: her posterity. Her husband was in parliament, or had been.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: That came back to him from his mother's story. He
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: caught himself reverting to her with a frequency that surprised him.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: He was haunted by the image of that bright, strong
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: woman on Chrisford's canvass in whom there was just enough
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: of Fanny Knocker to put a sort of defiance into
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: the difference. He wanted to see it again, and his
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: opportunity was at hand in the form of a visit
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: to Missus Grisford. He called on this lady without his daughter,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: four days after he had lunched with her, and finding
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: her a home, he presently led the conversation to the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: portrait and to his ardent desire for another glimpse of it.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Missus Chrisford gratified this eagerness. Perhaps he struck her as
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: a possible sitter. It was late in the afternoon and
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: her husband was out. She led him into the studio.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Missus dragant, splendid and Serene stood there as if she
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: had been watching for him. There was no doubt the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: picture was a masterpiece. Marris had mentioned that he had
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: known the original years before and then had lost sight
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: of her. He questioned his hostess, with artful detachment, what
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: the sort of a person? Has she become? Agreeable? Popular? Oh?
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Everyone adores her. She's so clever, really remarkably, extraordinarily one
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: of the cleverest women I've ever known, and quite one
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: of the most charming. Maura looked at the portrait, at
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: the super subtle smile, which seemed to tell him Missus
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Tregant knew they were talking about her, a kind of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: smile he had never expected to live to see in
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Fanny Knocker's eyes. Then he asked, has she literally become
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: as handsome as that? Missus Crisford hesitated, She's beautiful, beautiful?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Marris echoed, Oh, what shall I say? It's a peculiar charm.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: It's her spirit. One sees that her life has been
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: beautiful in spite of her sorrows. Missus Crisford added, what
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: sorrows has she had? Marris colored a little as soon
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: as he had spoken. Oh, lots of deaths. She has
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: lost her husband, she has lost several children. Ah, that's
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: new to me. Was her marriage happy? It must have
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: been for mister Tregant. If it wasn't for her, no
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: one ever knew. But she has a son, said Morris, Yes,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the only one. Such a dear She thinks all the
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: world of him. At this moment a message was brought
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: to Missus Crisford, and she asked to be excused while
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: she went to say a word to some one who
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: was waiting. Maurice Glanvill in this way was left alone
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: for five minutes. With the intensity of the presence evoked
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: by the artist, he found himself agitated excited by it.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: The face of the portrait was so intelligent and conscious that,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: as he stood there, he felt as if some strange
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: communication had taken place between his being and Missus Tregant's.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: The idea made him nervous. He moved about the room
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: and ended by turning his back. Missus Crisford reappeared, but
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: he soon took leave of her, and when he had
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: got home, he had settled himself in South Kensington in
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: a little undiscriminated house, which he had hated from the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: first he learned from his daughter that she had had
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: a visit from young Tregant. He had asked first for
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: mister Glanville, and then, in the second instance, for herself,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: telling her when admitted, as if to attenuate his possible indiscretion,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: that his mother had charged him to try to see her,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: even if he should not find her father. Vera had
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: never before received a gentleman alone, and the incident had
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: left traces of emotion. Poor little thing, Morris said to himself.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: He always took a melancholy view of any happiness of
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: his daughters, tending to believe in his pessimism that it
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: could only lead to some refinement of humiliation. He encouraged her, however,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: to talk about young Tregant, who, according to her account,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: had been extravagantly amusing. He had said, moreover, that his
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: mother was tremendously impatient to renew so an old acquaintance.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Why in the world doesn't she, then, Morris asked himself,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: why doesn't she come and see Vera. He reflected afterwards
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: that such an expectation was unreasonable, but it represented at
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: the moment a kind of rebellion of his conscience. Then,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: as he had begun to be a little ashamed of
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: his curiosity, he liked to think that Missus Tregant would
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: have quite as much. On the morrow he knocked at
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: her door. She lived in a commodious house in Manchester Square,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: and had the satisfaction, as he had chosen his time carefully,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: of learning that she had just come in upstairs in
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: a high, quiet, old fashioned drawing room. She was before him.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: What he saw was a tall woman in black in
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: her bonnet, with a white face, smiling intensely smiling and
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: smiling before she spoke. He quickly perceived that she was
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: agitated and was making an heroic effort which would presently
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: be successful not to show it. But it was above
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: all clear to him that she wasn't Fanny Knocker, was
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: simply another person altogether. She had nothing in common with
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: Fanny Knocker. It was impossible to meet her on the
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: ground of any former acquaintance. What acquaintance had he ever
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: had with this graceful, harmonious, expressive English matron whose smile
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: had a singular radiance. That rascal of a Chrisford had
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: done her such perfect justice that he felt as if
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: he had before him the portrait of which the image
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: in the studio had been the original. There were nevertheless
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: things to be said, and they said them on either side,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: sinking together with friendly exclamations and exaggerated laughs. On the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: so where her nearness seemed the span of all the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: distance that separated her from the past. The phrase that
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: hummed through everything, to his sense was his own, inarticulate
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: How could I have known? How could I have known?
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: How could he have foreseen? That? Time and life and happiness?
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: It was probably more than anything happiness would transpose her
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: into such a different key. Her whole personality revealed itself,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: from moment to moment, as something so agreeable that, even
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: after all these years, he felt himself blushing for the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: crass stupidity of his mistake. Yes, he was turning red,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: and she could see it and would know why, a
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: perception that could only constitute for her a magnificent triumph,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: a revenge. All his natural and acquired coolness, his experience
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: of life, his habit of society, everything that contributed to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: make him a man of the world, were of no
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: avail To cover his confusion. He took refuge from it,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: almost angrily in trying to prove to himself that she had,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: on a second look a likeness to the ugly girl
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: he had not thought good enough in trying to trace
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Fanny Knocker in her fair ripe bloom, the fine irregularity
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: of her features to put his finger on the identity
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: would make him feel better. Some of the facts of
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the girl's crooked face were still there. Conventional beauty was absent,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: but the proportions and relations had changed, and the expression
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: and the spirit she had accepted herself or ceased to care,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: had found oblivion and activity and appreciation. What Morris mainly discovered, however,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: in this intenser observationation, was an attitude of hospitality towards himself,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: which immediately effaced the presumption of triumph. Vulgar vanity was
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: far from her, and the grossness of watching her effect
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: upon him. She was watching only the lost vision that
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: had come back, the joy that if for a single
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: hour she had found again. She herself had no measure
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: of the alteration that struck him, and there was no
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: substitution for her in the face that her deep eyes
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: seemed to brush with their hovering. Presently, they were talking
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: like old friends, and before long each was in possession
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: of the principal facts concerning the other. Many things had
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: come and gone, and common fate had pressed them hard.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: Her parents were dead, and her husband and her first
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: born children. He, on his side, had lost his mother
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: and his wife. They matched breathing months and compared bruises.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: And in the way she expressed herself there was a
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: charm which forced him, as he wondered, to remember that
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Fanny Knocker had at least been intelligent. I wish I
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: could have seen your wife. You must tell me all
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: about her, she said, haven't you some portraits, some poor
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: little photographs. I'll show them to you. She was very
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: pretty and very gentle. She was also very un English,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: but she only lived a year. She wasn't clever and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: accomplished like you. Ah me, you don't know me, no,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: but I want to, oh particularly, I'm prepared to give
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: a good deal of time to the study. We must
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: be friends, said Missus Tregant. I shall take an extraordinary
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: interest in your daughter. She'll be grateful for it. She's
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: a good, little, reasonable thing, without a scrap of beauty.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: You care greatly for that, said Missus Dragant. He hesitated
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: don't you, She smiled at him with her basking candor.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: I used to that's my husband, she added, with an
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: odd though evidently accidental. In consequence, she had reached out
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: to a table for a photograph in a silver frame.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: He was very good to me. Morris saw that mister
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: Dragant had been many years older than his wife, a prosperous,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: prosaic parliamentary person whom she couldn't impose on a man
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: of the world. He sat an hour and they talked
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: of the mutilated season of their youth. He wondered at
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: the things she remembered. In this little hour, he felt
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: his situation change. Something strange and important took place. He
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: seemed to see why he had come back to England,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: But there was an implication that worried him. It was
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: in the very air, a reverberation of that old assurance
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: of his mother's. He wished to clear the question up.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: It would matter for the beginning of a new friendship.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Had she had any sense of injury when he took
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: to his heels, any glimpse of the understanding on which
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: he had begun to come to Innismore Gardens. He couldn't
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: find out to day, except by asking her, which, at
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: their time of life, after so many years and consolations,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: would be legitimate and even amusing. When he took leave
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: of her, he held her hand a moment, hesitating, Then
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: he brought out, did they ever tell you a hundred
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: years ago that between your mother and mine there was
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: a great question of our marrying? She stared, She broke
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: into a laugh. Was there? Did you ever know it?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Did you ever suspect it? She hesitated, and, for the
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: first time since he had been in the room, ceased
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: for an instant to look straight at him. She only answered,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: still laughing. However, poor DearS, they were altogether too deep.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: She evidently wished to convey that she had never known.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Morris was a little disappointed. At present he would have
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: preferred her knowledge, but as he walked home across the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: park through Kensington Gardens, he felt it impossible to believe
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: in her ignorance. And of Part four, Part five of
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: The Wheel of Time by Henry James. This LibriVox recording
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. At the end of a month,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: he broke out to her, I can't get over it.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: It's so extraordinary, the difference between your youth and your maturity.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Did you expect me to be an eternal child? Missus
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: Draggett asked composedly, No, it isn't that, he stopped. It
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: would be difficult to explain. What is it? Then? She inquired,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: with her systematic refusal to acknowledge a complication, There was always,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: to Maurice Glanville's ear, in her impenetrability to allusion, the faintest,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: softest glee, and it gave her, on this occasion, the
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: appearance of recognizing his difficulty and being amused at it.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: She would be excusable to be a little cold blooded.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: He really knew, however, that the penalty was all in
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: his own reflections, for it had not taken him even
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: a month to perceive that she was supremely, almost strangely indulgent.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: There was nothing he was ready to say that she
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: might not hear, and her absence of coquetry was a
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: remarkable rest to him. It isn't what I expected. Is
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: what I didn't expect to say exactly what I mean.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: It's the way you've improved. I've improved. I'm so glad.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Surely you've been aware of it, You've been conscious of
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: the transformation as an improvement. Oh, I don't know. I've
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: been conscious of changes enough, of all the stages and
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: strains and lessons of life. I've been aware of growing old.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: And I hold in descent from the usual belief that
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: there's no fool like a young fool. One is never
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: I suppose such a fool as one has been, and
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: that may count, perhaps as amelioration. But I can't flatter
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: myself that I've had two different identities. I've had to
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: make one such as it is do for everything. I
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: think I've been happier than I originally supposed I should be.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: And yet I had my happiness too as a girl
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: at all events. If you were to scratch me, as
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: they say, you'd still find She paused a moment, and
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: he really hung upon her lips. There was such a
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: charm of tone in whatever she said, you'd still find
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: underneath the blowsy girl. With this, she again checked herself, and,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: slightly to his surprise, gave a nervous laugh. The blowsy girl,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: he repeated, with an artlessness of interrogation that made her
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: laugh again. Whom you went with that hot day to
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: see the princess give the prizes? Oh? Yes, that dreadful day,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: he answered, gravely, musingly, with the whole scene pictured by
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: her words, and without contesting the manner in which she
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: qualified herself. It was the nearest allusion that had passed
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: between them to that crudest conception of his boyhood. His
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: flight from innis More Gardens. Almost every day for a
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: month he had come to see her, and they had
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: talked of a thousand things. Never yet, however, had they
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: made any explicit mention of this remote instance of premature wisdom. Moreover,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: if he now felt the need of going back, it
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: was not to be apologetic to do penance. He had
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: nothing to explain for his behavior, as he considered it
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: still struck him, given the circumstances, as natural. It was
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: to himself, indeed, that explanations were owing, for he had
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: been the one who had been most deceived. He liked
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: missus Draget better than he had ever liked a woman.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: That is, he liked her for more reasons he had
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: liked his poor little wife only for one, which was
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: after all no reason at all. He had been in
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: love with her in spite of the charm that the
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: renewal of acquaintance with old friend had so unexpectedly added
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: to his life. There was a vague torment in his
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: relation with her, the sense of a revenge, oh, a
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: very kind one to take, a haunting idea that he
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: couldn't pacify. He could still feel sore at the trick
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: that had been played him. Even after a month. The
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: curiosity with which he had approached her was not assuaged
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: in a manner. Indeed, it had only borrowed force from
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: all she had insisted on doing for him. She was
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: literally doing everything now, gently, gaily, with a touch so
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: familiar that protestations on his part would have been pedantic.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: She had taken his life in hand. Rich as she was,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: she had known how to give him lessons in economy.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: She had taught him how to manage in London on
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: his means. A month ago his servants had been horrid.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: To day they were the best he had ever known.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: For Vera, she was plainly a providence. Her behavior to
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: Vera was transcendent. He had privately made up his mind
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: that Vera had, in truth had her coudefoudra, that if
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: she had had a chance, she would have laid down
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: her little life for Arthur Dregant. Yet two circumstances, he
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: could perceive, had helped to postpone, to attenuate even somewhat,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: her full consciousness of what had befallen her. One of
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: these influences had been the prompt departure of the young
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: man from London. The other was simply the diversion produced
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: by Missus Dregant's encompassing art. It had had immediate consequences
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: for the child. It was like a drama in perpetual climaxes.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: This surprising benefactress rejoiced in her society, took her out,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: treated her as if there were mysterious injustices to repair.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Vera was agitated not a little by such a change
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: in her life. She had English kindred enough uncles and
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: aunts and cousins, but she had felt herself lost in
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: her father's family, and was principally aware among them of
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: their strangeness and their indifference. They affected her mainly as
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: mere number and stature. Missus Tregant's was a performance, unpromised
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: and uninterrupted, and the girl desired to know if all
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: English people took so generous a view of friendship. Morris
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: laughed at this question, and without meeting his daughter's eyes,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: answered in the negative. Vera guessed so many things that
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: he didn't know what she would be guessing next. He
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: saw her caught up to the blue like Ganymede, and
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: surrendered her contentedly. She had been the occupation of his life,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: Yet to Missus Tregant, he was willing to part with her.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: This lady was the only person of whom he would
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: not have been jealous, even in the young man's absence. Moreover,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Vera lived with the son of the house and breathed
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: his heir. Manchester Square was full of him. His photograph
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: was on every table. How often she spoke of him
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: to his mother. Marris had no means of knowing nor
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: whether Missus Dregant encouraged such a topic. He had reason
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: to believe, indeed, that there were reserves on either side,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: and he felt that he could trust his old friend's
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: prudence as much as her liberality. The attitude of forbearance
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: from rash allusions, which was Morris's own, could not at
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: any rate keep Arthur from being a presence in the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: little drama which had begun for them all. As the
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: older man was more and more to recognize with nervous
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: prefigurements on that occasion at the Crisfords, Arthur Treggan had
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: gone to Ireland to spend a few weeks with an
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: old university friend. The gentleman indeed at Cambridge had been
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: his tutor, who had lately, in a district classified as disturbed,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: come into a bewildering heritage. He had chosen, in short
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: for a study of the agrarian question on the spot,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: the moment of the year when London was most absorbing.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Maurice Glanville made no remark to his mother on this anomaly,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: and she offered him no explanation of it. They talked,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: in fact, of almost everything except Arthur. Missus Tregant had
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: to her constant visitor the air of feeling that she
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: owed him, in relation to her son, an apology which
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: she had not the materials for making. It was certainly
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: a high standard of courtesy that would suggest to her
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: that he ought to have put himself out for these
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: social specimens. But it was obvious that her standard was high.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: Morris Glanville smiled when he thought to what bare civility
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: the young man would have deemed himself held, had he
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: known of a certain passage of private history. But he
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: knew nothing. Morris was sure of that his reason for
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: going away had been quite another matter. That Vera's brooding
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: parent should have had such an insight into the young
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: man's motives is a proof of the amount of reflection
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: that he devoted to him. He had not seen much
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: of him, and in truth he found him provoking, but
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: he was haunted by the odd analogy of which he
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: had had a glimpse on their first encounter. The late
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: mister Tregant had had interests in the North, and the
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: care of them had naturally devolved upon his son, who,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: by the mother's account, had shown an admirable capacity for business.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: The late mister Tregant had also been actively political, and
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: it was fondly hoped in Manchester Square at least that
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: the day was not distant when his heir would, in turn,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: and as a representative of the same respectabilities, speak reported
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: words in debate. Morris, himself vague about the House of Commons,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: had nothing to say against his making a figure there. Accordingly,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: if these natural gifts continued to remind him of his
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: own fastidiously clever youth, it was with the difference that
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: Arthur Dragen's cleverness struck him as much the greater of
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: the two. If the changes in England were marked, this
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: indeed was in general one of them, that the sharp
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: young men were still sharper than of yore. When they
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: had ability, at any rate, they showed it all. Morris
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: would never have pretended that he had shown all his
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: He had not cared whether anyone knew it. It was not. However,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: this superior intensity which provoked him and poor young Tregant
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: could not be held responsible for his irritation. If the
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: circumstance in which they most resembled each other was the
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: disposition to escape from plain girls who aspired to them.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: Such a characteristic, as embodied in the object of Vera's admiration,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: was purely interesting, was even amusing to Vera's father, But
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: it would have gratified him to be able to ascertain
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: from Missus Tregant whether, to her knowledge her son thought
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: his child really repulsive. And what annoyed him was the
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: fact that such an inquiry was practically impossible. Arthur was provoking,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: in short, because he had an advantage, an advantage residing
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: in the fact that his mother's friend couldn't ask questions
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: about him without appearing to indulge in hints and overtures.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: The idea of this officiousness was odious to Maurice Glanville,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: so that he confined himself to meditating in silence on
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: the happiness it would be for poor Vera to marry
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: a beautiful young man with a fortune and a future.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: Though the opportunity for this recreation it engaged much of
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: his time, should be counted as one of the pleasant
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: results of his intimacy with Missus Dragant, yet the sense
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: perverse enough that he had a ground of complaint against her, subsisted,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: even to the point of finally steadying him while he
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: expressed his grievance. This happened in the course of one
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: of those afternoon hours that had now become indispensable to him,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: hours of belated tea and egotistical talk in the long
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: summer light and the chastened roar of London. No it
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't fair, he said, and I wasn't well used a
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: hundred years ago. I'm sorry about it now. You ought
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: to have notified me, to have instructed me. Why didn't you,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: in common honesty, Why didn't my poor mother, who was
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: so eager and shrewd, Why didn't yours. She used to
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: talk to me. Heaven forgive me for saying it. But
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: our mothers weren't up to the mark. You may tell
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: me they didn't know, to which I reply that mine
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: was universally supposed, and by me in particular, to know
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: everything that could be known. No, it wasn't well managed,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: and the consequence has been this odious discovery, an awful
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: shock to a man of my time of life, and
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: under the effect of which I now speak to you
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: that for a quarter of a century I've been a fool.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: What would you have wished us to do? Missus s
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: Trekant asked, as she gave him another cup of tea,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: Why to have said, wait, wait, at any price, have
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: patience and hold on. They ought to have told me.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: You ought to have told me that your conditions at
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: that time were a temporary phase, and that you would
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: infallibly break your shell. You ought to have warned me.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: They ought to have warned me that there would be
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: wizardry in the case that you were to be the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: subject in a given moment of a transformation, absolutely miraculous.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: I couldn't know it by inspiration. I measured you by
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: the common law how could I do anything else? But
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: it wasn't kind to leave me in error. Maurice Glanville
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: treated himself without scruple to this fine, ironic flight, this sophistry,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: which eased his nerves, because though it brought him nearer
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: than he had yet come to putting his finger visibly
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: to Missus Tregant on the fact that he had once
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: tried to believe he could marry her and had found
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: her too ugly, their present relation was so extraordinary, and
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: his present appreciation so liberal as to make all almost
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: any freedom excusable, especially as his companion had the advantage
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: of being, to all intents and purposes, a different person
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: from the one he talked of, while he suffered the
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: ignominy of being the same. There has been no miracle,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: said Missus Draggett after a moment. I've never known anything
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: but the common ah, the very common law, and anything
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: that I may have become. Only the common things have
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: made me. He shook his head. You wore a disfiguring mask,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: a veil, a disguise. One fine day you dropped them
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: all and showed the world the real creature. It wasn't
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: one fine day, It was little by little Well, one
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: fine day I saw the result. The process doesn't matter.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: To arrive at a goal invisible from the starting point
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: is no doubt an incident in the life of a
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: certain number of women. But what is absolutely unprecedented is
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: to have traversed such a distance. Hadn't I a single
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: redeeming point? Missus dragant demanded. He hesitated a little, and
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: while he hesitated, she looked at him. Her look was
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: but of an instant, but it told him everything told
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: him in one misty moonbeam. All she had known of
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: old she had known perfectly. She had been as conscious
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: of the conditions of his experiment as of the invincibility
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: of his repugnance. Whether her mother had betrayed him didn't matter.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: She had read everything clear and had had to accept
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: the cruel truth. He was touched as he had never
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: been by that moment's communication. He was unexpectedly, almost awe struck,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: for there was something still more in it than he
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: had guessed. I was letting my fancy play just now,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: he answered, apologetically. It was I who was wanting. It
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: was I who was the idiot. Don't say that you
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: were so kind, And hereupon Missus Draggett startled her visitor
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: by bursting into tears. She recovered herself, indeed, and they
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: forebore on that occasion, in the interest of the decorum
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: expected of persons of their age and their circumstances, to
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: rake over these smoldering ashes. But such a conversation had
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: made a difference, and from that day onward Marrie Glanville
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: was awake to the fact that he had been the
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: passion of this extraordinary woman's life. He felt humiliated for
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: an hour, but after that his pleasure was almost as
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: great as his wonder. For wonder, there was plenty of room.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: But little by little he saw how things had come
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: to pass. She was not subjected to the ordeal of
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: telling him, or to the abasement of any confession. But
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: day by day he sound with a purity of gratitude
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: that renewed in his spirit the sources of youth, the
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: depths of everything that her behavior implied, of such a
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: steadied tenderness, as she showed him, the roots could only
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: be in some unspeakably sacred past. She had not to explain,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: she had not to clear up inconsistencies. She had only
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: to let him be with her. She had striven, she
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: had accepted, she had conformed, But she had thought of
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: him every day of her life. She had taken up
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: duties and performed them. She had banished every weakness and
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: practiced every virtue. But the still hidden flame had never
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: been quenched. His image had interposed, his reality had remained.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: And she had never denied herself the sweetness of hoping
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: that she should see him again, and that she should
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: know him. She had never raised a little finger for it,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: but fortune had answered her prayer. Women were capable of
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: these mysteries of sentiment, these intensities of fidelity. And there
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: were moments in which Maurice Glanvill's heart beat strangely before
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: a vision really so sublime. He seemed to understand now
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: by what miracle Fanny Knocker had been beatified, the miracle
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: of heroic docilities, and accepted pangs and vanquished egotisms. It
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: had never come in a night, but it had come
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: by living for others. She was living for others. Still,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: it was impossible for him to see anything else at last,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: than that she was living for him. The time of
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: passion was over, but the time of service was long.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: When all this became vivid to him. He felt that
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: he couldn't recognize it enough, and yet that recognition might
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: only be tacit, And as it were circuitous, he couldn't
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: say to her, even humorously, its very kind of you
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: to be in love with such a donkey, for these
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: words would have implied somehow that he had rights, an
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: attitude from which his renovated delicacy shrank. He bowed his
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: head before such charity, and seemed to see moreover that
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: Missus Dragant's desire to befriend him was a feeling independent
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: of any prospect of gain, and indifferent to any chance
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: of reward. It would be described vulgarly, after so much
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: had come and gone as the state of being in love,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: the state of the instinctive and the simple, which they
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: both had left far behind, so that there was a
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: certain sort of reciprocity which would almost constitute an insult
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: to it. End of Part five, Part six of The
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: Wheel of Time by Henry James. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. He soared on these high thoughts
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: till towards the end of July. Missus Tregant stayed late
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: in town. She was awaiting her son's return, he made
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: the discovery that to some persons, perhaps indeed to many,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: he had all the air of being in love. This
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: image was flashed back to him from the irreverent lips
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: of a lady who knew and admired Missus Tregant, and
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: who professed amusement at his surprise at his artless declaration
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: that he had no idea he had made himself conspicuous.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: She assured him that everyone was talking about him, though people,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: after all, had a tenderness for elderly romance, and she
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: left him divided between the acute sense that he was
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: comical he had a horror of that, and the pale
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: perception of something that he could help still less, at
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: the end of a few hours of reflection, he had
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: sacrificed the penalty to the privilege. He was about to
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: be fifty, and he knew Fanny Knocker's age no one better.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: But he cared no straw for vulgar judgments, and moreover,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: could think of plenty of examples of unions admired. Even
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: after long delays. For three days, he enjoyed the luxury
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: of admitting to himself without reserve, how indispensable she had
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: become to him. As the third drew to a close,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: he was more nervous than really he had ever been
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: in his life. For this was the evening on which,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: after many hindrances, Missus Dragant had agreed to dine with him.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: He had planned the occasion for a month. He wanted
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: to show her how well he had learned from her
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: how to live on his income. Her occupations had always interposed.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: She was teaching him new lessons. But at last she
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: gave him the joy of sitting at his table. At
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: the evening's end, he begged her to remain after the others,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: and he asked one of the ladies who had been present,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: and who was going to a pair of parties, to
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: be so good as to take Vera away. This indeed
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: had been arranged in advance. And when in the discomposed
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: drawing room, of which the window stood open to the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: summer night, he was alone with his old friend, he
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: saw in her face that she knew it had been arranged.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: He saw more than this, that she knew what he
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: was waiting to say, and that if, after a visible reluctance,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: she had consented to come, it was in order to
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: meet him with whatever effort on the ground he had
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: chosen meet him once and then leave it forever. This
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: was why, without interrupting him, but before he had finished
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: putting out her hand to his own with a strange
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: clasp of refere fusal, she was ready to show him
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: in a woeful but beautiful handshake, to which nothing could
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: add that it was impossible at this time of day
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: for them to marry. She stayed only a moment, but
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: in that moment he had to accept the knowledge that,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: by as much as it might have been of old,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: by so much might it never be again. After she
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: had gone, he walked up and down the drawing room
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: half the night. He sent the servants to bed. He
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: blew out the candles. The forsaken place was lighted only
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: by the lamps in the street. He gave himself the
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: motive of waiting for Vera to come back, but in
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: reality he threshed about in the darkness because his cheeks
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: had begun to burn. There was a sting for him
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: in Missus Draggant's refusal, and this sting was sharper even
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: than the disappointment of his desire. It was a reproach
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: to his delicacy It made him feel as if he
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: had been an ass for the second time. When she
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: was young and free. His faith had been too poor
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: and his perceptions too dense. He had waited to show
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: her that he only bargained for certainties and only recognized success.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: He dropped into a chair at last, and sat there
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: a long time, his elbows on his knees, his face
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: in his hands, trying to cover up his humiliation, waiting
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: for it to ebb. As the sounds of the night
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: died away, it began to come back to him that
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: she had given him a promise to which a rich
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: meaning could be attached. What was it that, after going away,
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: she had said about Vera in words he had been
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: at the moment, too disconcerted to take in. Little by little,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: he reconstructed these words with comfort. Finally, when after hearing
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: a carriage stop at the door, he hastily pulled himself
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: together and went down to admit his daughter. The sight
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: of the child on his threshold, as the brougham that
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: had restored her drove away, brought them all back in
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: their generosity. Have you danced, he asked? She hesitated, Little Papa,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: he knew what that meant. She had danced once. He
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: followed her upstairs in silence. She had not wasted her time,
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: she had had her humiliation. Ah, clearly she was too short.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: Yet on the landing above where her bedroom candle stood,
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: she tried to be gay with him, asking him about
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: his own party and whether the people had stayed late.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: Missus Dragant stayed after the others. She spoke very kindly
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: of you. The girl looked at her father with an
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: anxiety that showed through her smile. What did she say?
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: He hesitated, as Vera had done a moment before, that
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: you must be our compensation. His daughter's eyes, still wondering,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: turned away. What did she mean? That? It's all right, darling?
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: And he supplied the deficiencies of this explanation with a
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: long kiss for good night. The next day he went
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: to see Missus Tregant, who wore the air of being
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: glad to have something at once positive and pleasant to say.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: She announced immediately that Arthur was coming back. I congratulate you. Then,
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: as they exchanged one of their looks of unreserved recognition,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: Morris added, now it's for Vera and me to go
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: to go without more delay. It's high time we should
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: take ourselves off. Missus Tragant was silent a moment. Where
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: shall you go to our old haunts abroad? We must
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: see some of our old friends. We shall spend six
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: months away. Then what becomes of my months? Your months? Those?
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: It's all arranged. She's to spend it blankly. Blankly was
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: Missus Draggan's house in Derbyshire, and she laughed as she
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: went on. Those that I spoke of last evening. Don't
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: look as if we had never discussed it and settled it.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: What shall I do without her? Morris Glanville presently demanded,
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: what will you do with her? His hostess replied with
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: a world of triumphant meaning he was not prepared to
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: say in the sense of her question, and he took
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: refuge in remarking that he noted her avoidance of any
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: suggestion that he too would be welcome at Derbyshire, which
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: led her to continue with unshrinking frankness. Certainly, I don't
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: want you a bit leave us alone? Is it safe?
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: Of course I can't absolutely answer for anything, but at
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: least it will be safer than with you, said Missus Traant.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: Marris Glanville turned this over. Does he dislike me, what
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: an idea? But the question had brought the collar to
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: her face, and the sight of this, with her evasive answer,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: kindled in Morris's heart a sudden relief, a delight almost.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: That was strange enough. Arthur was in opposition, plainly, and
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: that was why he had so promptly quitted London. That
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: was why Missus Tregant had refused. Mister Glanville, the idea
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: was an instant balm. He'd be quite right, poor fellow.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: Marris declared, I'll go abroad alone. Let me keep her
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: six months, said Missus Tregant. I'll try it. I'll try it.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't interfere for the world. It's an immense responsibility,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: but I should like so to succeed. She's an angel,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: Morris said. That's what gives me courage. But she mustn't
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: dream of any plot, he added, For what do you
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: take me, missus Dragant exclaimed, with a smile which lightened
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: up for him intensely that far away troubled past, as
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: to which she had originally baffled his inquiry. The joy
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: of perceiving in an aversion to himself a possible motive
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: for Arthur's absence was so great in him that before
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: he took leave of her, he ventured to say to
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: his old friend, does he like her at all? He
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: likes her very much. Morris remembered how much he had
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: liked Fanny Knocker, and been willing to admit it to
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: his mother. But he presently observed, of course, he can't
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: think her in the least pretty, as you say. She's
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: an angel, Missus Dragant rejoined. She would pass for one
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: better if she were a few inches taller. It doesn't matter,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: said Missus Dragant. One must remember that in that respect,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: at her age, she won't change. Morris pursued, wondering after
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: he had spoken, whether he had pressed upon the second pronoun. No,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: she won't change. But she's a darling, Missus dragantt exclaimed.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: And it was in these meager words, which were only half, however,
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: of what passed between them, that an extraordinary offer was
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: made and accepted. They were so ready to understand each
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: other that no insistence and no professions were now necessary,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: and that Maurice Glanvill had not even broken into a
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: murmur of gratitude at this quick revelation of his old
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: friend's beautiful conception of a nobler remedy. They endeavor to
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: place their union outside themselves, to make their children know
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: the happiness they had missed. They had not needed to
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: teach each other what they saw, what they guessed, what
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: moved them with pity and o. And there were transitions
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: enough safely skipped in the simple conversation I have preserved.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: But what Missus Tregant was ready to do for him
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: filled Maurice Glanville for days after this with an even
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: greater wonder, and it seemed to him that not till
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: then had she fully shown him that she had forgiven him.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: Six months, however, proved much more than sufficient for her
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: attempt to test the plasticity of her son. Maurice Glanville
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: went abroad, but was nervous and restless, wandering from place
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: to place, visiting old scenes and old friends, reverting with
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: a conscious and even amused incongruity, and yet with an
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: effect that was momentarily soothing to places at which he
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: had stayed with his wife, but feeling all the while
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: that he was really staking his child's happiness. It only
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: half reassured him to feel that Vera would never know
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: what poor Fanny Knocker had been condemned to know, for
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: the daily contact was cruel. From the moment the issue
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: was uncertain, and it only half helped him to reflect
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: that she was not so plain as Fanny. For had
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: not Arthur Tregant given him the impression that the young
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: man of the present was intrinsically even more difficult to
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: please than the young man of the past. The letters
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: he received from blankly conveyed no information about Arthur beyond
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that he was at home. Only once Vera
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: mentioned that he was remarkably good to her. Towards the
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: end of November, he found himself in Paris, submitting reluctantly
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: to social accidents, which put off, from day to day
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: his return to London. When one morning in the Rue
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: de Rivolis, he had to stop short to permit the
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: passage of a vehicle which had emerged from the court
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: of an hotel. It was an o open cab. The
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: day was mild and bright, with a small quantity of
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: neat leathery luggage, which Marris vaguely recognized as English, stowed
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: in the place beside the driver, luggage from which his
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: eyes shifted straight to the occupant of the carriage. A
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: young man, with his face turned to the allurements of
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: travel and the urbanity of farewell to bowing waiters still
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: visible in it. The young man was so bright and
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: so on his way as it were, that Marris, standing
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: there to make room for him, felt for the instant
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: that he too had taken a tip. The feeling became
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: acute as he recognized that this humiliating obligation was to
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: no less a person than Arthur Dregant. It was Arthur
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: who was so much on his way. It was Arthur
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: who was catching a train. He noticed his mother's friend
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: as the cab passed into the street, and with a
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: quick demonstration, caused the driver to pull up. He jumped
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: out and under the arcade. The two men met with
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: every appearance of cordiality, but with conscious confusion. Each of
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: them colored perceptibly, and Morris was angry with himself for
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: blushing before a boy. Long afterwards he remembered how cold
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: and even how hard was the handsome clearness of the
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: young eyes that met his own in an artificial smile.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: You hear, I thought you were blankly. I left blankly yesterday.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: I'm on my way to Spain. To Spain, how charming
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: to join a friend there just for a month or two,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: interesting country, well worth seeing. Your mother's all right? Oh yes,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: all right, and miss Glanville, Arthur Tregant went on cheerfully.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: Vera's all right, interrupted Marris, with a still gayer tone.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: Every one, everything's all right, Arthur laughed, Well, I mustn't
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: keep you bon voyage. Maurice Glanville, after the young man
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: had driven on, flattered himself that in this brief interview
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: he had suppressed every indication of surprise. But that evening
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: he crossed the Channel, and on the morrow he went
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: down to Blankly, to Spain, to Spain. The words kept
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: repeating themselves in his ears. He, when he had taken
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: flight in a similar conjunction, had only got for the
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: time as far as Boulogne, and he was reminded afresh
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: of the progress of the species. When he was introduced
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: into the drawing room at Blankly, a chintzy, flowery, friendly
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: expanse Missus Dragant rose before him alone and offered him
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: a face that she had never shown before. She was white,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: and she looked scared. She faltered in her movement to
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: meet him. I met Arthur in Paris, so I thought
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: I might come. Oh. Yes, there was pain in her
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: face and a kind of fear of him that frightened him.
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: But their hands found each other's hands. When she replied,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: he went off. I didn't know it, but you had
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: a letter the next morning, Marris said. She stared, How
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: did you know that? Who should know better than I?
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: He wrote from London, explaining I did what I could.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: I believed in it, said Missus Tregant. He was charming
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: for a while, but he broke down. She's too short, eh,
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: Marris asked, don't laugh, she's ill. What's the matter with her?
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: Missus Tregant gave the visitor a look in which there
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: was almost a reproach for the question. She has had
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: a chill. She's in bed. You must see her. She
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: took him upstairs, and he saw his child. He remembered
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: what his mother had told him of the grievous illness
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: of Fanny Knocker. Poor little Vera lay there in the
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: flush of a feverish cold, which had come on the
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: evening before. She grew worse from the effect of a complication,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: and for three days he was anxious about her, but
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: even more than with his alarm. He held his breath
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: before the distress, the disappointment, the humility of his old friend.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: Up to this hour, he had not fully measured the
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: strength of her desire to do something for him, or
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: the intensity of passion with which she had wished to
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: do it in the particular way that had now broken down.
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: She had counted on her influence with her son, on
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: his affection, and on the maternal art, and there was
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: anguish in her compunction for her failure, for her false
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: estimate of the possible. Maurice Glanville reminded her, in vain
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: of the consoling fact that Vera had known nothing of
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: any plan, and he guessed, indeed the reason why this
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: theory had no comfort. No one could be better aware
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: than Fanny Tregant of how much girls knew who knew nothing.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: It was doubtless this same sad wisdom that kept her
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: somber when he expressed a confidence that his child would
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: promptly recover. She herself had had a terrible fight, and
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: yet with the physical victory, had she recovered. Her apprehension
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: for Vera was justified, for the poor girl was destined
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: finally to forfeit even the physical victory. She got better,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: she got up, She quitted blankly. She quitted England with
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: her father, but her health had failed, and a year
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: later it gave way. Overtaken in Rome by a second illness.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: She succumbed. Unlike Fanny Knocker, she was never to have
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: her revenge. End of Part six, End of the Wheel
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: of Time by Henry James,