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Viviette-William John Locke · Idols

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Viviette. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot orc. Viviete by
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  Speaker 1: William John Locke, Chapter one the Brothers. Dick said, Viviette
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  Speaker 1: ought to go about in skins like a primitive man.
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  Speaker 1: Catherine Holroyd looked up from her needlework. She was a gentle,
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  Speaker 1: fair haired woman of thirty, with demure blue eyes which
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  Speaker 1: regarded the girl with a mingling of pity, protection and amusement.
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  Speaker 1: My dear, she said, whenever I see a pretty girl
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  Speaker 1: fooling about with a primitive man, I always think of
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  Speaker 1: a sweet little monkey I once knew, who used to
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  Speaker 1: have great sport with a light eighted shell. Her master
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  Speaker 1: kept it on his table as a paperweight, and no
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  Speaker 1: one knew it was loaded. One day she hit the
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  Speaker 1: shell in the wrong place, and they are still looking
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  Speaker 1: for the monkey. Don't think Dick is the empty shell.
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  Speaker 1: Whereupon she resumed her work, and for a few moments
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  Speaker 1: the click of thimble and needle alone broke the summer stillness.
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  Speaker 1: Viviette lay idly on a long garden chair, admiring the
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  Speaker 1: fit of a pair of dainty tanned shoes, which she
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  Speaker 1: twiddled with graceful twists of the ankles, some five feet
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  Speaker 1: from her nose. At missus Holroyd's remark, she laughed, after
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  Speaker 1: the manner of one quite contented with herself, a low
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  Speaker 1: musical laugh, in harmony with the blue June sky and
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  Speaker 1: the flowering chestnuts and the song of the thrushes. My
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  Speaker 1: intention with regard to Dick is strictly honorable, she remarked.
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  Speaker 1: We've been engaged for the last eleven years and I
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  Speaker 1: still have his engagement ring. It costs three and sixpence.
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  Speaker 1: I only want to warn you, dear, said missus Holroyd.
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  Speaker 1: Anybody can see that Dick is in love with you,
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  Speaker 1: and if you don't take care, you'll have Austin falling
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  Speaker 1: in love with you too. Viviette laughed again. But he
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  Speaker 1: has already fallen. I don't think he knows it yet,
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  Speaker 1: but he has. It's great fun being a woman, isn't it, Dear.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever found it, so Catherine
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  Speaker 1: replied with a sigh. She was a widow and had
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  Speaker 1: loved her husband and her sky was still tinged with gray. Viviete,
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  Speaker 1: quick to catch the sadness of the voice, made no reply,
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  Speaker 1: but renewed the contemplation of her shoe tips. I'm afraid
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  Speaker 1: you're an arrant, little coquette, said Catherine indulgently. Lord Mancy says,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a little devil, she laughed.
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  Speaker 2: If she was, in.
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  Speaker 1: Some measure a coquette, she may be forgiven what woman
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  Speaker 1: can have. Suddenly revealed to her the thrilling sense of
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  Speaker 1: her sex's mastery over men without snatching now, and then
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  Speaker 1: the fearful joy of using her power. She was one
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  Speaker 1: and twenty, her heart still unawakened, and she returned to
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  Speaker 1: her childhood home to find men who had danced her
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  Speaker 1: on their knees, bending low before her and proclaiming themselves
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  Speaker 1: her humble vassals. It was intoxicating. She had always looked
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  Speaker 1: up to Austin with awe, as one too remote and
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  Speaker 1: wholly for girlish ir reverence, and now no wonder her
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  Speaker 1: sex laughed within her. Until she had gone abroad to
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  Speaker 1: finish her education. She lived in that old gray manor
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  Speaker 1: house that dreamed in the sunshine of the terrace below
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  Speaker 1: which she was sitting ever since. They brought her thither,
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  Speaker 1: an orphaned child of three Missus Ware. Her guardian was
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  Speaker 1: her adopted mother, the sons Dick and Austin Ware, her brothers.
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  Speaker 1: The engagement, when she was ten and Dick one and twenty,
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  Speaker 1: had hardly fluttered the fraternal relationship. She had left them
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  Speaker 1: a merry, kittenish child. She had returned a woman, slender,
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  Speaker 1: full bosomed, graceful, alluring, with a maturity of fascination beyond
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  Speaker 1: her years. Enemy said she had gipsy blood in her veins.
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  Speaker 1: If so, the infusion must have taken place long long ago,
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  Speaker 1: for her folks were as proud of their name as
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  Speaker 1: the Wares of Warehouse. But for all that, there was
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  Speaker 1: a suggestion of the exotic in the olive and cream
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  Speaker 1: complexion and the oval face pointing at the templed chin,
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  Speaker 1: something of the woodland in her lithe figure and free gestures.
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  Speaker 1: In her swimming dark eyes. One could imagine something fierce
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  Speaker 1: and untamable lying beneath her laughing idleness. Catherine Hollroyd called
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  Speaker 1: her a coquette Austin whatever the whim of a cultured
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  Speaker 1: fancy suggested, and Lord Banstead a little devil.
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  Speaker 2: As for Dick.
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  Speaker 1: He called her nothing. His love was too great, his
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  Speaker 1: vocabulary too small. Lord Banstead was a neighbor who, in
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  Speaker 1: the course of three months, had proposed several times to Viviette.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not much to look at, he remarked on the
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  Speaker 1: first of these occasions. He was a weedy, pallid youth
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  Speaker 1: of six and twenty, and the title is not very old.
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  Speaker 1: I must admit, governor only a scientific Johnny margaretson, the
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  Speaker 1: celebrated chemist you know, who discovered some beastly gas or
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  Speaker 1: other and got made a peer. But I can sit
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  Speaker 1: with the other old rotters in the House of Lords,
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  Speaker 1: you know, if I want. And I've got enough to
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  Speaker 1: run the show, if you'll keep me from chucking it
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  Speaker 1: away as I am doing, Dear God said, if you
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  Speaker 1: marry me, I give you my word before I have
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  Speaker 1: anything to do with you, replied Viviette, who'd heard Dick
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  Speaker 1: express his opinion of Lord Banstead in forcible terms. You'll
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  Speaker 1: have to fur, swear, sack and and a very big
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  Speaker 1: and Lord Banstid, not being learned in literally illusions, looked bewildered.
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  Speaker 1: Viviette laughed, I'll translate if you like. You'll have to
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  Speaker 1: give up unlimited champagne and whisky and lead an ostensibly
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  Speaker 1: respectable life, whereupon Lord Banstead called her a little devil,
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  Speaker 1: and went off in dudgeon to London and took golden
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  Speaker 1: haired ladies out to supper. When he returned to the country,
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  Speaker 1: he again offered her his title, and been rejected a
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  Speaker 1: second time, again called her a little devil, and went
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  Speaker 1: back to the fashionable supper room. A third and a
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  Speaker 1: fourth time he executed this complicated maneuver, and now news
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  Speaker 1: had reached Viviette that he was in residence at Fairfield,
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  Speaker 1: where he was boring himself exceedingly in his father's scientific library.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose he'd be coming over to day.
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  Speaker 2: Said Vie.
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  Speaker 1: Why do you encourage him, asked Catherine. I don't ytheete retorted,
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  Speaker 1: I snub him unmercifully. If I am a coquette, it's
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  Speaker 1: with real men, not with the by product of a
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  Speaker 1: chemical experiment. Catherine dropped her work and her underlip and
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  Speaker 1: turned reproachful blue eyes on the girl. Viviette, Oh, she shocked,
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  Speaker 1: saint lyuto she's shocked. Then, with a change of manner,
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  Speaker 1: she rose and bending over Catherine's chair kissed her. I'm sorry, dear,
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  Speaker 1: she said in pretty penitence. I know it was an
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  Speaker 1: abominable and unladylike thing to say, but my tongue sometimes
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  Speaker 1: runs away with my thoughts.
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  Speaker 2: Forgive me.
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  Speaker 1: At that moment, a man dressed in rough tweeds and leggings,
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  Speaker 1: who had emerged from the stable side of the manor house,
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  Speaker 1: crossed the terrace, and, descending the steps, walked over the
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  Speaker 1: lawn towards the two ladies. He had massive shoulders and
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  Speaker 1: a thick, strong neck, coarse reddish hair, and a mustache
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  Speaker 1: of a lighter shade. Blue eyes looked with a curious,
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  Speaker 1: childish pathos out of her face. Hand by sun and weather.
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  Speaker 1: He slouched slightly in his gait, like the heavy man
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  Speaker 1: accustomed to the saddle. This was dick Ware, the elder
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  Speaker 1: of the brothers, an heir to Fallham fortunes, mortgage house
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  Speaker 1: and lands, and he gave the impression of failure of
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  Speaker 1: a man who, in spite of thews and sinews, had
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  Speaker 1: been unable to grapple with circumstance. Viviette left Catherine to
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  Speaker 1: her needlework and advanced to meet him at u spontaneous
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  Speaker 1: act of welcome. A light came into his eyes. He
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  Speaker 1: removed from his lips the short corn cob pipe he
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  Speaker 1: was making. I've just been looking at the new mayor.
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  Speaker 1: He's a beauty. I know I oughtn't have got her,
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  Speaker 1: but she was going dirt cheap. What can a man
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  Speaker 1: do when he's offered a horse at a quarter its value? Nothing?
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  Speaker 1: My dear Dick save pay four times as much as
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  Speaker 1: he can afford. But we have to get a new beast,
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  Speaker 1: he argued, seriously. We can't go about the country and
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  Speaker 1: a donkey cart. If I hadn't bought one, Ostin would
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  Speaker 1: for the sake of the family dignity. And I do
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  Speaker 1: like to feel independent of Austin. Now then I wish
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  Speaker 1: you were entirely independent of Austin, said Viviete, walking with
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  Speaker 1: him up the lawn. My can't so long as I
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  Speaker 1: stay here doing nothing. But if I went out to
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  Speaker 1: Canada or New Zealand, as I want to do, who
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  Speaker 1: would look after my mother? I'm tied by the leg
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  Speaker 1: I'd look after mother, said Viviete. And you'd write me
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  Speaker 1: nice long letters saying how you were getting on. And
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  Speaker 1: I would tell you nice little bulletins, and we should
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  Speaker 1: all be very happy. You want to get rid of me, Viviete.
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  Speaker 1: I want you to have your heart's desire. You know
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  Speaker 1: what my heart's desire is, he said, unsteadily. Why to
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  Speaker 1: raise sheep or drive cattle or chop down trees in
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  Speaker 1: the backwards, she replied, lifting demure eyebrows. Oh, Dick, don't
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  Speaker 1: be foolish. See there's mother. Just come out with a
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  Speaker 1: light laugh. She escaped and ran up the steps to
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  Speaker 1: meet an old lady, rather infirm, who, with the head
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  Speaker 1: of a stick, was beginning to take her morning walk
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  Speaker 1: up and down the terrace. Dick followed her moodily. Good morning, mother, said,
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  Speaker 1: he bending down to kiss her. Missus Ware put up
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  Speaker 1: her cheek and received the salute with no great show
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  Speaker 1: of pleasure. Oh you smell of tobacca smoke, Dick, where's Austin?
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  Speaker 1: Please go and find him. I want to hear what
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  Speaker 1: he has to say about the stables.
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  Speaker 2: What can you say?
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  Speaker 1: Mother? You can advise us and help us to put
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  Speaker 1: the muddle right, said missus Ware. These stables had been
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  Speaker 1: a subject to controversy for some time, the old ones
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  Speaker 1: having fallen into disgraceful disrepair. Dick had turned architect and
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  Speaker 1: erected new ones himself as shelters for beasts. They were
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  Speaker 1: comparatively sound as Appanage's turned Elizabethan manor house. They were
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  Speaker 1: open to adverse criticism. Austin, who had come down from
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  Speaker 1: London ado or two before to spend his whitsun tide
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  Speaker 1: holiday at home, had promised his mother to make inspection
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  Speaker 1: and report. But what does Austin know about stables, Viviette asked,
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  Speaker 1: as soon as Dick had slutched away in search of
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  Speaker 1: his brother. Arsty knows about everything, my dear, replied the
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  Speaker 1: old lady decisively. Not any is Ostin a brilliantly clever man,
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  Speaker 1: but he's a successful barrister, and a barrister's business to
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  Speaker 1: know all about everything. Give me your arm, dear, let
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  Speaker 1: us walk up and down a little till they come. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: Dick returned with Austin, whom he found smoking a cigar
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  Speaker 1: in a very meditative manner in front of the stables.
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  Speaker 1: Dick's face was gloomy, but Ostin's was bright as he
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  Speaker 1: came briskly up and cigar in hand, to stoop to
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  Speaker 1: his mother. She put her arms round his neck, kissed
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  Speaker 1: him affectionately, and inquired after his sleep and his comfort,
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  Speaker 1: and the quality of his breakfast? Does not did smell
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  Speaker 1: of tobacco smoke? Mother asked Dick. Austin replied, missus Ware
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  Speaker 1: has a way of smoking, and not smelly of it.
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  Speaker 1: Austin laughed gaily. I believe if I fell into a pond,
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  Speaker 1: you say I had a way of coming up dry.
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  Speaker 1: Dick turned to Viviette and muttered, with some bitness, And
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  Speaker 1: if I fell into a dry ditch, she'd say I
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  Speaker 1: came up slimy. Viviete, touched by pity, raised a bewitching face.
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  Speaker 1: Dry or slimy, you'd be just the same, dear old Dick,
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  Speaker 1: she whispered. And what about the stables, gasped missus Ware.
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  Speaker 1: Oh they're not bad, They're rather creditable. But Austin added,
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  Speaker 1: turning with a laugh to his brother, the mother will fidget,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and the somewhat, let us say, Rococo style
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  Speaker 1: of architecture has got on her nerves. I think the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing had better come down, don't you you like?
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  Speaker 1: Said Dick gruffly. He'd given way to Austin all his life.
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  Speaker 1: What was the use of opposing him. Now good, I'll
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  Speaker 1: send young Rapson, the architect, along to make a design.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you worry, old Chap, I'll see it through young
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  Speaker 1: brisk debonair flushed with success and the scent of the
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  Speaker 1: mastery of life. He did not notice the lowering of
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  Speaker 1: Dick's brows, which deepened into all mister scowl when he
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  Speaker 1: turned frankly admiring eyes on Vivierte and drew her into
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  Speaker 1: gay and laughing talk. Nor did he catch the hopelessness
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  Speaker 1: in the drag of Dick's feet as he went off
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  Speaker 1: to gaze sorrowfully at the fallen pride of his heart
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  Speaker 1: the condemned state. But Viviete, who knew as Austin, did
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  Speaker 1: not of Dick's disappointment, soon broke away and joined him
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  Speaker 1: in front of the amorphous shed of timber. She took
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  Speaker 1: him by the arm, come for a stone in the orchard.
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  Speaker 1: He suffered himself to be dead. Through the stable yard gate.
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  Speaker 1: She talked to him of apple blossoms. He listened for
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  Speaker 1: some time in silence. Then he broke out. It's an
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  Speaker 1: infernal shame, said he. It is, said Viviette, But you
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  Speaker 1: needn't put on such a dumb face when I'm here,
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  Speaker 1: especially to comfort you, even not glad to see me.
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  Speaker 1: I'll go back to Austin. He's much more amusing than you.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose he is. Yes, go back to him. I'm
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  Speaker 1: a fool, I'm nobody. No, don't Viviette, forgive me, he cried,
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  Speaker 1: catching her as she turned away, somewhat haughtily. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: mean it. Things are getting beyond my endurance. Viviette seated
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  Speaker 1: herself on a bench beneath the apple bossums, what things everything,
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  Speaker 1: my position, Ostin's airy way, that was what makes him
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  Speaker 1: so charming. Yes, confound him my ways about his areas
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  Speaker 1: of hippopotamuses. Look at me, viet I'm fond of Austin.
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  Speaker 1: God knows, But all my life he's been put in
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  Speaker 1: front of me. He has all all the chances, and
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  Speaker 1: I've had none. With my father when he was alive,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: with my mother, it always been Ostin this, and Ostin that.
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  Speaker 1: He was the head of the school when I the
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  Speaker 1: elder was a lout in the low. For he had
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  Speaker 1: a brilliant university career and went into the world and
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  Speaker 1: is making a fortune. I'm only able to ride and
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  Speaker 1: shoot and do country things. I'm stuck here with any
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  Speaker 1: this mortgage house belonged to me and the hundred or
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  Speaker 1: so a year get out of the tenants. Not even
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  Speaker 1: executor of my father's will. It's Austin. Ostin pays mother
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  Speaker 1: the money under her marriage settlement. If things go wrong,
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  Speaker 1: Austin is said for to put them right. Never seems
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  Speaker 1: to curt him that it's my house. Of course, I
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  Speaker 1: know he pays the interest on the mortgage and makes
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  Speaker 1: my mother an allowance. That's the humiliation of it. He
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  Speaker 1: sat with his elbows on his knees and his head
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  Speaker 1: in his hand, staring at the grass. Surely you could
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  Speaker 1: find some work to do, dick, he shrugged his great shoulders.
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  Speaker 1: They stopped me once in an office in London. I
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: suffocated and nodded up things wrong, and told the wrong
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  Speaker 1: lie to the wrong people, and ended up by breaking
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the junior partner's head. He had some satisfaction out of it,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: at any rate, laughed Viviette. A faint reminiscent smile crossed
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  Speaker 1: his face. I suppose I had, but didn't qualify me
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  Speaker 1: for a successful business career. No, I might do something
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: in a new country. I must get away from this.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I can't stand it. But yes, as I've told you
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  Speaker 1: all along, I'm tied hand and foot. So you're very miserable, Dick.
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  Speaker 1: How can I help it? Vivierte edged a little away
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  Speaker 1: from him and said, rather resentfully, I don't call that polite.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Seeing that I have come back to live with you,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: he turned on her with some fierceness. Don't you see
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  Speaker 1: that your being here makes my life all the more impossible?
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  Speaker 1: How can I be with you day after day without
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  Speaker 1: loving you, hungering for you, wanting you body and soul.
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  Speaker 1: I've never given a thought to another woman in my life.
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  Speaker 1: You're my heart's blood, Dear. I want to hold you
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  Speaker 1: so tight in my arms that it's not the ghost
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  Speaker 1: of another man can ever come between us?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: You know it?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Yvert shredded an apple blossom that had fallen into her lap.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: The fingers that held the petal tingled, and a flush
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  Speaker 1: rose in her cheek. I do know it, she said,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in a low voice. You're always telling me, But Dick,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: she flashed her mischievous glance at him, while you're holding me,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: although it would be very nice we should starve, then,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: let us starve.
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  Speaker 2: He cried vehemently.
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  Speaker 1: Oh no, and most decidedly, no, starvation would be so unbecoming.
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  Speaker 1: I should get to be a frighter, a bundle of
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: bones and a rundle of skin, and you'd be horrified.
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't bear it if you'd only say you'd care
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  Speaker 1: to scrap for me. Be easier, he pleaded. I should
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  Speaker 1: have thought it would be harder, anyhow, say it. Say
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  Speaker 1: this once, just this once. She bent her head to
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  Speaker 1: hide a smile and said, in a voice adorably soft, Dick,
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  Speaker 1: shut your eyes yet, he cried with sudden hope. No,
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  Speaker 1: shut your eyes. Turn round, now tell me, she continued,
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  Speaker 1: when he turned obediently, just what I've got on? No,
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  Speaker 1: she held him by the shoulders. You're not to move.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: She was wearing a white blouse and a blue skirt
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  Speaker 1: and tanned shoes, and a yellow rose was pinned at
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  Speaker 1: her bosom. What dress am I wearing? A light colored thing,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: said Dick. And what's it trimmed with?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Lace?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Said the unfortunate man?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Lace? Indeed?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And what colored boots?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Black? Said Dick at adventure?
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And what flower? I don't know? A pink rose? I
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: think she started up? Look, she cried gaily Oh, Dick,
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  Speaker 1: I'll never marry you till you have the common decency
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  Speaker 1: to look at me. Never, never, never, I dress myself
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  Speaker 1: to this beautiful morning just to please you. Oh Dick, Dick,
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  Speaker 1: you've lost such a chance. She stood with her hands
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  Speaker 1: behind her back, regarding him mockingly as even the first
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: orchard must have regarded Adam when he was more dull
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and masculine than usual, when, for instance, she had a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: tired himself in hibiscus flowers, which he took for the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: humdrum every day fig leaves. I'm a born duffer, said
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Dick pathetically. But your face is all that I see
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: when I look at you. That's all very pretty, she retorted,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: But you ought to see more. Then let us talk sense. Mind,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: if I sit on that bench again, you ought to
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: talk sense. Dick sighed well, very well, said he. That
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: was the history of all his love making. She drew
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: him on to passionate utterance, and then, with a twist
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of her wit and a twirl of her skirts, she
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: alluded him, won't you thus put herself out of his reach.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: He felt ashamed. What right had he dull, useless, lumbering,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: squadomless squire to ask a woman like Viviette to marry him.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: How could he support a wife, as it was he
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: lived a pensioner on Austin's bounty. Could he ask Austin
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: to feed his wife and family as well? This thought,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: which always came to him as soon as his passion
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: was checked, filled him with deep humiliation. Viviette had reason
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: on her side when she said, let us talk sense.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: He glowered at his fate and tugged his torny mustache
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: for some time in silence. Then Viviette began to talk
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to him prettily of things that made up his country, interests,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: his dogs, the garden, the personalities of the countryside. Soon
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: she had him laughing, which pleased and flattered her as
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it proved her power over the primitive man he needed.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: At such moments, she felt very tenderly towards him, and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: would have liked to pat his cheeks and crown him
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: with flowers, thus manifesting her favor by dainty. But she refrained,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: knowing that primitive men are too dense to interpret such
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: demonstrations rightly, and limited herself to less compromising words. I'm
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: going to tell you a secret, he said at last,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: in a shamefaced way. You mustn't laugh at me. Promise
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you won't, I promise, said Viviette solemnly. I'm thinking of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: going in for local politics, rural district council, you know.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Viviette nodded her head approvingly. A village Hampden in Tory clothing.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: They're running things on party lins down here. The influence
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: of Westhampton is radical and fills the council with a
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: lot of outsiders. So they got together a conservative committee
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: and we're going to run a good strong man for
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: a vacancy. I've given them to understand that I'll be
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a candidate if they have me. I'd like to be
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: one some rubbishy thing, dear, but somehow we give a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: little interested in life. I don't think it's a rubbish
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: thing at all, said Viviette. A country gentleman ought to
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: have had rural administration. I do hope you'll get in.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: When will you know that the committee has selected you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: me as a meeting this evening. I ought to know
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to night or to morrow morning. Are you very keen
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: on it? Very? Said Dick, and he added proudly it
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: was my own idea. But you are not as keen
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: on that as on going abroad. Ah that said Dick,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: that Bawan is the dearest wish of my heart, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: who knows it might enable me to carry out the other.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: The sound of a gong within the house floated through
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the still June air. Viviette rose, I must tidy myself
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: for lunch. They walked to the house together. On parting,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: she put out both her hands. Do be reasonable, Dick,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: don't look for slights in what you call Ostin's airy ways.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: He's awfully fond of you and would not hurt.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: You for the world.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: At the luncheon table, however, Ostin did hurt him in
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: utter consciousness by his gay command of the situation, his
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: eager talk with Viviette of things Dick did not understand.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Places he had not visited, books he had never read,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: pictures he had never seen. It was heartache rather than envy.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: He did not grudge Austin his scholarship and brilliant but
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: his soul sank at the sight of Austin and Viviete
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: moving as familiars in a joyous world. As wrote from
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: him as Neptune, missus ware kept Katherine Holroyd engaged in
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: mild talk of cooks and curates, while the other two
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: maintained their baffling conversation, half banter, half serious on a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: bewildering number of topics, and poor Dick remained as dumb
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: as the fish and cutlets he was eating. He sat
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: at the head of the table, missus Ware at the foot.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: On his right hand sat Katheryne Holroyd. On his left Viviette,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and between her and his mother was Austin. With Viviete
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: talking to Austin and missus Ware to Catherine. He felt
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: lonely and disregarded in a and of polar waist of
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: snowy tablecloth. Once Catherine, escaping from missus Ware's platitudinous ripple,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: took pity on him and asked him when he was
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: going to redeem his promise and show her his collection
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of armor and weapons. Dick brightened. This was the only
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: keen interest he had in life outside things of earth
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and air and stream. He'd inherited a good family collection
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and had added to it occasionally as far as his
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: slender means allowed. He had read deeply and understood his subject.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Whenever you, like Catherine, he said this afternoon. I'm afraid
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: they want polishing up and arranging. I've got some new
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: things which I have not placed. I've rather neglected them lately.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Let us say tomorrow afternoon. Then they'll all be spick
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and spam for you. Catherine assented, I've been down here
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: so often and never seen them. She said, it seems
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: odd considering the years we've known each other. I only
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: took it up after father's death, said Nick. Since then,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I haven't been here so very often. In
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the last time that I discovered you took an interest
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in the collection, you hid your life under a bushel.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Then I went to London and heard that you were
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a great authority on the subject. Dick's tanned face reddened
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: with pleasure. I do know something about it. You see,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: guns and swords and pistols are in my line. I'm
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: good at killing things. I ought to have been a soldier.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I couldn't pass examinations, so I s want of interest
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: myself in the old weapons and do my kidding and imagination.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: You give a regular lecture, don't you, well? You know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: said Dick modesty. A lot of them are historical. There's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: a mate used by a bishop and ancestor of ours.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: He couldn't wield a sword in battle, so he caughtn't
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: onto that in order to salve his conscience before using it,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: he would cry out gare gere. And they say, that's
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: what our name came from. See where where he was
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the founder of our family? Of course he ought to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: have been. And then we have the Duning pistols. My
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: great grandfather shot Lord Escort with the beautiful things in
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the case, just as he left it after the duel,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: with powder bowls and caps all complete. It's a romantic story.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: My dear Dick interposed missus ware with fragile uplifted hand.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Please don't offend us with these horrible family scandals. Katherine, dear,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: are you going to the Vickers Garden party this afternoon?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: If you are, when you take a message to missus
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: cook So Catherine being monopolized, Dick was silenced, and as
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Austin and Viviette were talking in a lively but unintelligible
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: way about a thing or a play or a horse
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: called Nietzsche, he relapsed into the heavy, full blooded man's
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: animal enjoyment of his food and the sensitives consciousness of heartache.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: When the ladies had left the table and the coffee
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: had been brought in, and the men's cigars were lit,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Austin said, what a magnificently beautiful creature has grown into?
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Whom you mean?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Asked Dick, Why Vivier. Of course, she's the most fascinating
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: thing I've come across for years. You think so, said
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Dick shortly, don't you? Dick shrugged his shoulders. Ostin laughed,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: what a stundid, old beggar you are. To you, she's
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: just the same little girl that used to run about
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: here in short frocks. If you were a horse, you'd
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: have a catalog yard long of her points. But as
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: she's a lady, said Dick, tugging his mustache, I don't
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: care to catalog them. Austin laughed again, fairly sCOD He
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: raised his cup to his lips, took a sip, and
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: set it down again. Why on earth, said he, with
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: some petulance. Can't mother give us decent coffee? End of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: chapter one, Chapter two of Viviete by William John Locke.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Simon Avers. Chapter two, The Conspirators Dick went heavy hearted
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to bed that night, pronounced himself to be the most
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: abjectly miserable of God's creatures, and calling on Providence to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: remove him speedily from an unsympathetic world. He had saved
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: good night to the ladies at eleven o'clock when the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: three went upstairs to bed, and at forthwith gone to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: spend the rest of the evening in the friendly solitude
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of his armory. Emerging thence an hour later into the hall,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: he come upon a picturesque but heart rending spectacle. There
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: on the third step of the ground staircase stood at Viviete,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: holding in one hand a candle and extending the other
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: regally downwards to Austin, who, with sleek head bent, was
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: pressing it to his lips. In the candlelight, her hair
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: threw disconcerting shadows over her elfin face, and her great
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: eye seemed to glow with a magical intensity that poor
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Dick had never seen in them before. As soon as
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: he had appeared, she had broken into her low laugh,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: drawn away her hand from Austin, and, descending the steps,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: extended it in much the same regal manner to Dick.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Good night again. Dick, she said sweetly, oughts In and
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I have been having a little talk. But he had
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: disregarded the hand, and with a gruff good knight had
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: returned to his armory, slamming the door behind him. There,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: he had nourished his wrath on more whiskey and soda
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: than was good for him, and crawled upstairs in the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: small hours to miserable sleeplessness. This was the beginning of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Dick's undoing, the gods, abetted by Viviete employing their customary
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: procedure of first driving him mad. But Viviette was not
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: altogether guilty a better. Indeed, all day long she had
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: entertained high notions of acting fairy godmother and helping Dick
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: along the roads to fortune and content. He himself, she learned,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: had taken no steps to free himself from his present
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: mode of life. He had not even confided in austin.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Viviete ran over the list of her influential friends. There
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: was Lady Windsmere, a douter countess of seventy surrounded by notabilities,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: at whose house she stayed now and then in London.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: On the last occasion, an agent general for one of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the great colonies had sat next to her at dinner.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Then there was her friend, Missus Penderby, whose husband gathered
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: enormous wealth in some mysterious way in mark Lane. Why
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: should she not go up to London and open a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: campaign on Dick's behalf, secure him an appointment, and come
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: back of flourishing it before his dazzled and delighted eyes.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: The prospect was enchanting. The fairly godmother romance of it
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: fascinated her girlish mind. But first she must clear the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: ground at home. There must be no opposition from Austin.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: He must be her ally. When a woman gets an
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: idea like this into her head, she must execute it,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: as the Americans say, right now. A man waits, counts
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: up all the barriers, and speculates on the strength and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: courage of the land in the path. But a woman
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: who goes straight forward and does not worry about the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: lands till they bite her. Viviete resolved to speak to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Austin at once, but owing to a succession of the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: little ironies of circumstance, she found no opportunity of doing
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: so all the afternoon or evening. It was only when
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: standing at the top of the stairs. She'd seen Dick
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: go off to the armory and Austin return to the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: drawing room for the men had bidden the ladies good
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: night at the hall. That she saw her chance, she
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: went downstairs and opened the drawing room door. I don't
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: want to go to bed after all. Do you think
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you can do with me a little longer?
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Great deal longer, he said, drawing a chair for her
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and arranging the shade of a lamp so that the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: light should not shine full in her eyes. I was
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: just thinking how dal the room looked without you, as
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: if all the flowers had suddenly been taken away. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: suppose I am decorative, she said, blandly, you'll bewitching. What
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: instinct made you choose that shade of pale green for
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: your frock? If I seen it in the pattern, I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: should have said it was impossible for your coloring. But
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: now it seems to be the only perfect thing you
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: could wear. She laughed her little laugh of pleasure, and
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: thanked him prettily for the compliment. They banded gay words
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: for a while. I'm so glad you've come down, even
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: for this short visit, said Viviete. At last, I was
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: pining for talk, for wit, for a breath of the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: great world beyond these sleepy meadows. You bring all that
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: with you. Austin leaned forward. How do you know I'm
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: not bringing even more? The girl's eyes drooped before his gaze.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Then she fluttered advance at him, in which there was
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a gleam of mockery. You bring the most valuable gift
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of all, appreciation of my frocks. I love people to
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: notice them. Now, Dick is frock blind. Why is that
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: MEAs a dear old lover, said Austin. I don't think
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: he's happy, said Viviette, who in her feminine way, had
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: worked round to the subject of the interview. He did
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: seem rather cut up. About the stables, Bostin admitted. But
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the things are, and I saw and mother was worrying
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: herself to death about them. It isn't known of the stables,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: said Viviette. Dick is altogether discontented. Wostin looked at her
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in amazement. Discontented he wants something to do. That's a nonsense,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: he laughed, with the air of a man certain of
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: his facts. He's as happy as a king here. He
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: shoots and hunts, looks after the place, runs the garden,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and potters about in his armory. Fact does just what
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: he likes all day long. He goes to bed without
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a care, sharing his pillow when he wakes up, gets
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: into comfortable country clothes instead of a tight fitting suit
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of responsibilities. For a man of his tastes. He leads
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: an ideal existence. He threw away the end of the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: cigarette he was smoking, as though to say that the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: argument was finished, but Viviete regarded him with a smile,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the smile of woman's superior wisdom. How astonishingly little he
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: knew of Dick. Do you really think there is one
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: contented being on earth? She asked, Even I know better
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: than that. Austin maintained that Dick ought to be contented,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: dependent for practically all he has on you. I've never
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: let him feel it, he said quickly. He does, though
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: he wants to get away to earn his own living,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: make a way for himself. That's the first I've heard
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: of it, said Austin, genuinely surprised. I really thought he
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: was perfectly contented here, of course not. Then he's grumpy,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: but he always has had fits of grumpiness. What kind
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: of work. Does he want something to do with sheep
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: or cattle in Arizona or New Zealand. Place doesn't matter
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: any open air life. Austin at another cigarette and walked
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: about the room. He was a man of well regulated
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: habits and did not like being taken unawares. Dick ought
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: to have told him. Then there was their mother who
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: would look after her. Dick was a dispensation of providence.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Perhaps I might be a deputy dispensation, mightn't I said Viviette.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think mother is so desperately attached to Dick
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: as all that it could be arranged somehow or other.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And Dick is growing more and more wretched about it
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: every day. Every day he pours out his words to
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: be till I can almost howl with misery. What do
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: you want me to do? Not to stand in his way?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: If he gets a chance of going abroad? Of course
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I won't, cried Austin, eagerly, never end of my head
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: that he wanted to go away. I would do anything
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: in the world for his happiness, poor old chap. I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: love Dick very deeply, in spite of his huge bulk
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and rough ways. That something of the woman in him
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: that makes one love him. They cataloged Dick's virtues, and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: then Viviete unfolded her scheme. One or other of the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: powerful personages, who, in her young confidence she proposed to attack,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: would surely know some opening abroad, even humble, I sometimes
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: here of things, said Austin. Only a day or two ago,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Old Lord Olverton asked me if I knew of a
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: man who could manage at timber forest he got in Vancouver.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Viviert jumped up and clapped her hands. Why that's the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: very thing for Dick, she cried exultingly. God, bless my soul,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: said Austin.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: So it is.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I never thought of it. If you get it for him,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I'll thank you in the sweetest way possible. She glanced
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: at him swiftly under her eyelids. I promise you I will.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Then I'll certainly get it, replied Austin. Austin then went
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: into details. Lord Overton wanted a man of education, a gentleman,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: one who could ride and shoot him make others work.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: He would have to superintend the planting and the cutting
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and the transportation of timber, and act as agent for
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the various farms. Lord Overton possessed in the wide district.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: The salary would be seven hundred pounds a year. The
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: late superintendent had suddenly died, and Lord Elverton wanted a
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: man to go out at once and fill his place.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: If only he had thought of Dick. But you're thinking
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: of him now. It can't be too late. Member. Such
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: qualifications are picked up at every street corner. That's quite true,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: said Austin. And that's for my recommendation, he added, in
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: his confident way, Lord Everton and I are on such
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: terms that he would not hesitate to give the appointments
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to a brother of mine. I'll write at once and
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: will say nothing to Dick until we've got it all
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: in black and white. Not a word, said he. Then
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: they burst out laughing like happy conspirators, and enjoyed beforehand
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the success of their plot. The old place would be
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: very strange without him, said Austin. A shadow passed over
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Vivierte's bright face. The manor house would indeed be very lonely.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Our occupations, Dick's liege, Lady Condunt, and Tormentor will be gone.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Parting from him will be a wrench. There would be
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a dreadful scene at the last moment in which he
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: want to hold her tight in his arms and make
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: her promise to join him in Vancouver. She shivered a little,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: then tossed her head, as if to throw off the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: disturbing thoughts. Tender to look at the dismal side of things.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: It's selfish. All we want is Dick's happiness. She glanced
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: at the clock and started up. It's midnight. If Catherine
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: knew I was here, she would lecture me. Ah, it's nothing,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: very dreadful, he laughed, Nor is Catherine's lecture. I call
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: her Saint Nitouche. But she's a great dear, isn't she?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Good Night? He accompanied her to the foot of the
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: stairs and lit her candle on the third stair. She paused,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: remember in all this, it's I who am the fairy Godmother,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: And I said, Austin, and nothing but the fairy Godmother's
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: humble and devoted factotum. He took the ham which she extended, and,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: bending over it, kissed it gallantly. Then, by unhappy chance,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: out came Dick from the armory and beheld the spectacle,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: which robbed him of his peace of mind. The next morning,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: when Dick came down luminly to breakfast. She was very
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: gentle with him and administered tactfully to his wants. She
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: insisted on going to the sideboard and carving his cold ham,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of which he had prodigious quantities, after a hot first course,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: and when she put the plate before him, laid a
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: caressing touch on his shoulder. She neglected Austin in a
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: bare faced manner and drew Dick into reluctant and then
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: animated talk on his prize roses and a set up
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: up just recovering from distemper. After the meal, she went
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: with him round the garden, inspected both roses and puppy,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and manifested great interest in a trenis he was constructing
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: for the accommodation later in the summer of some climbing cucumbers,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: a present only visible as modest leave in flower pots.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Neither made any reference to the little scene of the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: night before. Morning had brought to Dick the conviction that
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: in refusing her hand and slamming the door, he behaved
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in an impartonably bearish manner, and he could not apologize
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: for his behavior unless he confessed his jealousy of Austin,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: which in all probability would have subjected him to the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: mocking ridicule of Viviat, a thing which, above all others
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: he dreaded, and against which he knew himself to be defenseless. Viviet,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: too found silence golden. She knew perfectly well why Dick
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: had slammed the door. An explanation would have been absurd.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: He would have interfered with her relations with Austin, which
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: were beginning to be exciting. But she loved Dick in
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: her heart for being a bear, and evinced both her
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: compunction and her appreciation in peculiar graciousness. You never asked
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: me to try the new mare, she said, I don't
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: think it a bit kind of you. Would you care to,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he asked eagerly. Of course I should. I love to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: see you with horses. You and the trap on the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: horse seem to be as much one mechanism as a
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: motor car. I can make a horse do what I want,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: he said, delighted at the compliment. We'll take the dog cart.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: When will you come this morning? Yes, let us say eleven.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: It would be lovely. I have it round at eleven o'clock.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: You'll see she's a flyer, so am I, she said
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: with a laugh, and pointed to the front gate, where
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: a garden lad had just run to open to admit
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: a young man on horseback. Oh lord, it's Banstead, said Dick,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: with a groan. Au revoir. Eleven o'clock, said Viviette, and
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: she fled. Lord Bannstead dismounted, gave his horse to the lad,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: and came up to Dick. He was an unhealthy, dissipated
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: looking young man with lustreless eyes, a characterless chin, and
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: an under fair mustache. He wore a light blue hunting
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: stock fastened by a ruby fox in full gallop, and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a round felt hat with a very narrow flat brim
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: beneath which protruded strands of andrew egucheek hair. Hello, banditted,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: said Dick, Not very cordially, Hello, said the other. Halting
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: before the rose bed, where Dick was tying up some
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: blooms with baste, he watched him for a moment or two.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Conversation was not spontaneous. Where's Viviette, he asked? Eventually, Whew,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: growled the dick rot. What's the good of frills? Miss
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Hastings busy, she'll be busy all the morning. I rather
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to see her. I don't think you will. You
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: might ring at the front door and send in your card,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I might, said Bennette, lighting a cigar. He tried this
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: method of seeing Viviete before, but without success. There was
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: another pause. Dick snipped off an end of baste. You're
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: up very early, said he went to bed so badly sober.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I couldn't sleep, replied the misguided youth. Not a soul
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: in the house. I give you my word, so bored.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Last night I took a gun and tried to shoot cats,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: shot a damned cockfess by mistake, and how to bury
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the thing in my own covers. If I'm left to
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: myself to night, I'll get drunk and go out shooting tenants.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Come over and dine, God, said Dick do. I'll open
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: a bottle of the Governor's old port. They we can
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: play billiards or piquet, or cat's cradle, or any rotten
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: thing you like. Dick excused himself. Curtly Ostin had come
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: down for whitsuntide, and a lady was staying in the house.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Lord Mancip pushed his hat to the back of his head.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Then what the devil am I to do in this
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: hole of a place, don't know, said Dick. You fellies
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: in the country are so unfriendly town. I never need
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: dine alone. Anyone's glad to see me. Feel you all
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: by myself in that dining room fairly gives me the hip.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Then come and dine here, said Dick. Unable to refuse
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: a neighbor hospitality, right, said Bansid. That is really like
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the Samaritan, Johnny, I'll come with pleasure. Quarter to eight,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Vansy hesitated. Could you make it a quarter past? Dick stared,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: all for our dinner. Ah, you rather a nerve, haven't
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: you benched it? I wouldn't suggest it if it weren't paled,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: replied the other, grinning somewhat shamefacedly. But the fact is
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: I've got an appointment late this afternoon for the duty
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: of vicious and colinated youth outstripped his discretion. There's a
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: definish pretty girl, you know, the green man at Little Barton.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether I can get away in time.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Dick stuffed his base in his pocket and muttered things
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: uncomplimentary to Banstead dinners at a course to wait, you
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: can take it or leave it, said he. I suppose
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I've john had We got to take it, said batstt unruffled.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Anything's better than going through dinner from Suped to desert,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: all alone under the fishy eye of that butling image
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: of a Jenkins. He was thirty years at my governor's
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: service and doesn't understand my ways. I guess I'll have
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: to chuck him. A perspiring straw hatted postman lurched along
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the gravel drive for the morning's post. He touched his
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: hat to Dick, delivered the manor house bag into his hands,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: and departed. Ask all these in the morning room, said Dick,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: moving in the direction of the house, and all bansid,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: hoping to see Viviette, followed at his heels. The control
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: of the family post was one of the few privileges
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Dick retained.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: As master of the house.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: His simple mind still regarded the receipt and dispatch of
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: letters as a solemn affair of life, and every morning
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: he went through the process of distribution with ceremonial observance.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: In the morning room they found Austin and Viviette, the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: former writing in a corner, the latter reading a novel
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: by the French window that opened on to the terrace.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Dick went up to table, and, opening the mail bag,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: began to sort the letters into various heaps. Austin greeted
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Lord Banstead none too warmly, and with scarty an apology,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: went back to his writing. He disapproved of Banstead, who
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: was of a type particularly antagonistic to the young, clean
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and successful barrister. When Viviette had informed him of the
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: youth's presence in the garden, he'd exclaimed, impatiently, it ought
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: to be somebody's business to go round in the world
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: excasionally with a broom and sweep away spiders like that. Vivierte,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: mindful of the invective, received Lord Baanstein with a smile
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of amusement. As she had two protectors against the fifth
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: proposal of marriage, she stood her ground. I expected you
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: to come over yesterday, she said, No, did you really,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: exclaimed a flush rising to his pale cheeks, if I
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: thought that I should have come. You've made up for
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: it by arriving early to day at any rate, said Viviette.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: And I'm making up for it further by coming to
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: dinner to night, Dick ask me. He added, seeing the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: polite questioning in her eyes. That would be very nice,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: He said, you can talk to mother. You see, Dick
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: talks to missus Holroy, who is staying with us, Austin
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: talks to me. So poor mother is left out in
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the cold. She'll enjoy a nice long talk with you.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: When Bernstead took the course out to supper, he had
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: the ready repartee of his kind. In such a case,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: he would have told the lady not to pull his leg.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: But the delicate mockery in Vivitte's face seemed to forbid
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the use of this figure of speech, and as if
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: forcabery did not readily allow him to formulate the idea
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: in other terms, he said nothing, but settled his stock
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and looked at her adoringly. At last, he bent forward
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: after advance at the protectors and said, in a low tone,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: come out into the garden. I've something to say to you.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Why not say it here? She replied in her ordinary voice.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Vanstead bit his lip. He would have liked to call
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: her a little devil, but he reflected that if he did,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: she would be quite capable of repeating the phrase aloud,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: somewhat to the astonishment of Dick and Nostin, who might
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: ask for embarrassing explanations. Instead, he bent still nearer and whispered,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I can only say to you, Anne, I've been awake
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: all night thinking of it. Give you my word. Wait
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: till to morrow morning, and by then you may have
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: slept upon it. She counseled, you'll drive me to drink,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: he murmured.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: She rose with a laugh.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: In that case, I must go. I ought to be
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: labeled dangerous, didn't you think so, Dick. Besides, I'm going
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: for a drive and must put on my things, These
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: my letters, her revoir. With a wave of her hand,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: she left them vanstead lingered by the threshold, and took
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: up an illustrated paper. The maid, in response to Dick's summons,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: bore away the letters. For the rest of the household,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Austin and Dick concerned themselves with their correspondents, Dick's chiefly
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: consisting of Gardener's catalogs. For a while there was silence.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: It was broken by a loud laugh from Austin.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Dick.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I say, Dick, what do you think these village idiots
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: have asked me to do? To accept the nomination and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: stand as a rural district councilor me. He Dick quickly
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: crossed to the table where his brother was sitting. That's
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: my letter, old chap. I must have put it in
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: your heap by mistake. The invitation is meant for me,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: he Hugh laughed Austin, Why what do you want to
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: fool about with village politics? For no, the letter is
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: meant for me. Right enough, I can't understand it, said Dick.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Lord Pansy looked up from his paper that the Rural
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: District Council I'm on the committee had a meeting yesterday.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I'm chairman of the silly rotters. Then you're silly rotter
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: of an honorary secretary, cried Dick angrily, and said Austin,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the letter of invitation that was meant for me. Oh no,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: you didn't, said Dancid. It's all right. They chucked you,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: old son. Now, I remember I promised to explain. Dick
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: turned aside. How you needn't explain, he said, bitterly, But
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I must. They had the reasons, you know. They thought
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: they'd rather have a brainy nobleman like her brother than
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: a good old rotter like you. You're oh, hold your tongue,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Banstead cried Austin, rising and put his hand on Dick's shoulder. Really,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: my dear old Dick, you're the right person to stand.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Then he thought a lawyer could help them. But I'm
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: far too busy, of course, I decline. I'm deeply paid,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Dick at having hurt you. I'll write to committee and
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: point out how much fitter as a country gentleman you
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: are for them the duties than I am. They're bound
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: to ask you. Dick swung away passionately, his lips quivering
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: with anger and mortification beneath his great mustache. Do you
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: think I would accept? I'm damned if I would. Do
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: you expect me to pick up everything you've thrown in
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the mud and feel grateful? I'm damned if I will.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: He flung out of the room onto the terrace and
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: strode away in a rage. Seems to take it badly,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: remarked Banstead, looking at his disappearing figure. I'd better say
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: good bye, good bye, said Austin, as he accompanied him
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: with grim politeness to the front gate. If you've exercised
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the same tact to the chair as you've done here,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: your meetings must be a huge success. He returned with
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a shrug of the shoulders to his table in the
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: morning room. He was deeply attached to Dick, but a
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: lifelong habit of regarding him as a good natured, stupid
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: and contented chant blinded him to the storm that was
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: beginning to rage in the other's soul. The occurrence was unfortunate.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: It wounded the poor old fellow's vanity. Benstead's blatant folly
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: had been enough to set any man in a rage.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: But after all, Dick was a common sense creature, and
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: recognizing that Austin was in no way to blame, he
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: would soon get over it. Meanwhile, there was a waiting
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: in him, the joyful surprise of Vancouver, which would soon
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: put such petty mortifications out of his head. Thus Austin
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: consoled himself and settled down to the serious matters of
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: his correspondence. Viviette, coming in later in hat and jacket,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: found him busily writing. He looked up at her admiringly
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: as she stood against the background of light framed by
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the great French window. Am I presentable? She asked, with
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: a smile, interpreting his lance. Each modification of your dress
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: makes you seem more bewitching than the last I trimmed
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: this hat myself, she said, coming into the room and
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: looking at herself in a Queen Anne mirror on the wall.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: That's why it's so becoming, said Austin. She wheeled round
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: on him with a laugh. You really ought to say
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: something cleverer than that. How can I, he replied, when
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: you drive my wits away? Poor she said? And then suddenly,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: where's Dick? What do you want Dick for? He promised
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: to take me for a drive. She could sighted the
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: watch on her wrist. It's past eleven. Now I'm afraid
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: poor Dick is rather upset. He seemed to be counted
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: on being nominated to stand for the Royal District Council,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and the imbeciles invited me instead. Oh how could they,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: she cried, smitten with a great pity. How could they
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: be so stupid and cruel? I know all about it,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: he told me yesterday. He must be bitterly disappointed. Marstin
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: did not tell her of Lord Bannstead's tactful explanation of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the committee's action. He was a fastidious man and did
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: not care to soil his mind with the memory of
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Banstead's existence. If he had described the scene, the young
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: man's vulgarity, his own attempt at conciliation, and Dick's passionate outburst.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: The course of the drama that was shaping itself might
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: have been altered, but the stars in their courses were
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: fighting against Dick. Austin only said, if we get him disappointment,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: it would be ample compensation. Anyhow, Please don't say if,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Vivierte, we must get it unless allD Lord Everton
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: has already found a man, which is unlikely owing to
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the general suspension of business at Whitstonside. It's patterally a certainty.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Won't we know my letters were written and is waiting
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: for the post if he replies by return, which will
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: the other day after to morrow. That's such a long
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: time to wait. Do you know what to morrow is?
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Ah Wednesday, said Austin. It's Dick's birthday. She clapped her
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: hands at a happy inspiration and hung on his arm. Oh, Austin,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: if we could only give him the appointment as a
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: birthday present. Her touch, her fresh charm, the eagerness in
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: her eyes roused him to unwonted enthusiasm. In his same moment,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: he did not care a fig for any his birthday?
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: What man, ever does he proclaimed? The splendor he of
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: our idea? But how was it to be realized? Send
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: a long prepaid telegram to Lord Overton, of course, said
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Vivier triumphantly. How unresourceful are men? Then we can get
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: an answer to.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Day you forget.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: The nearest telegraph office is of Witherby, seven miles off.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: But Dick and I are going for a drive. I'll
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: make him go to Witherby and I'll send the telegram
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: write it. She drew him in her caressing way to
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the table, seated him in the chair, and laid the
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: block of telegram forms before him. He scribbled industriously, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: when he had finished, handed her the sheets. There he
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: fished in his pockets for money, but Vivier checked him.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: She was the fairy godmother in this fairy tale, and
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: fairy godmother's always held the purse. She danced again. At
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: her watch. It was ten minutes past eleven. Perhaps he's
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: waiting with the trap for me all the time the revoir.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: I'll see you off, said Austin. They went together into
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: the hall and opened the front door. The new mayor
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and the dog cart in charge of the stable lad
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: were there, but no Dick. Where's mister Ware down now?
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Miss?
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Then the devil entered to Viviete. There's no other explanation.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: The devil entered into her. We must get to Witherby
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: about before lunch. You drive me over instead of Dick.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: The exchanged glances. Austin was young, he was in love
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: with her. Dick had committed the unpardonable offense of being late.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: He would serve him right.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: I'll come, said he, disappearing in search of cap and gloves.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Viviote went into the hall and scribbled a note. Dear Dick,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: you're late. Austin and I have the most important business
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: to transact to Witherby, so he's driving me over. Will
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: preparing a great surprise for you. Viviette, give this to
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: mister Ware, she said to the stable boy, as you
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: prepared to get into the dog cart. The boy touched
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: his cap and ran to open the gate. Viviert lightly
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: mounted by Austin's side. They just turned into the road
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: when Dick came racing through the hall and saw them disappear.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: He walked up the drive and met the boy coming down,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: who hatdet him the note with some words which he
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: did not hear. He watched the boy out of sight.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Then he tore the note unread into tiny fragments, stamped
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: them furiously into the mold of the nearest bed, and,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: flying into his armory, threw himself into a chair, and
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: cursed the day that ever Austin was born. End of
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: chapter two, Chapter three of Viviette by William John Locke.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Simon Evers, Chapter three, Catherine. The drive was a memorable
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: one for many reasons. First, the new mare flew along
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: at an exhilarating trot, as if showing off her qualities
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: to her new masters. Then the morning sunshine flooded the soft,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: undulating Warwickshire country and slanted freshly through the bordering elms
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: in sweet scented lanes. Summer flaunted its irresponsible youth in
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: the faces of matronly red brick manor house, old gray
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: church and crumbling cottage, danced about among the crisp green leaves,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: kissed the wayside flowers, and tossing up human hearts in
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: sheer gaiety, played the very deuce with them. The drive
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: also had its altruistic side. They were on an errand
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: of benevolence. Ostin his mind, conscious of nothing but right,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: felt the unusual glow of unselfish devotion to another's interests.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: When he had awakened that morning, he had misgivings as
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: to the advisability of sending Dick to another hemisphere. After all,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Dick was exceedingly useful warehouse and saved him a great
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: deal of trouble. An agent would have to be appointed
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: to replace him, whose salary not a very large one
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: in view of the duties to be performed, but still
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: a salary would have to be provided out of his
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Austin's pocket, who again could undertake the permanent care of
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: his mother. Vivierte would stay at home for some little time,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: but she would be marrying one of these fine days,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: a day which Austin had reasons for hoping would not
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: be very remote. He would have to make heaven knows
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: what arrangements for missus ware and the general upkeep of
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: the manor house while he was in London carrying on
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: his profession. Decidedly, Dick had been a godsend and his
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: absence would be a calamity in sending him out to Vancouver.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Austin had all the unalloyed pure pleasure of self sacrifice.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: They talked of Dick and Dick's birsty and Dick's happiness
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: most of the way to witherby the telegram dispatched prepaid
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: for the poor ridge by viviete Ostin felt that he
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: had done his duty by his brother and deserves some
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: consideration on his own account. And here it was that
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: the summer began its game with their hearts on such
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Sportif occasions, it is not so much what is said
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: that matters. A conversation that might be entirely conventional between
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: comparative strangers in a fog may become the most romantic
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: interchange of sentiment imaginable between intimates in the sunshine. There
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: are tones, There are glances. There are half veiled allusion.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: There are in a dog god, especially when it jolts,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: thrilling contacts of arm and arm. There is man's undisguised
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: tributes to beauty. There is beauty's keen feminide appreciation of
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: the tribute. There is a manner of saying we which
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: counts for more than the casual conjunction of the personalities.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Missus our day, Viviat said Austin, I shall always remember it,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: so shall I. We must put a white mark against
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: it in our diaries.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: With white ink.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Of course, black would never do, nor red nor violet.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: But where shall we get it. I'll make a sum
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: when I get home, out of white cloud and lilies
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: and sunshine and a bit of the blue sky. Laughter
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: fluttered through her veins. Yesterday she had teasingly boasted to
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Catherine that Ostin was in love with her. Now she
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: knew it. He proclaimed it in a thousand ways, a
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: note of exultation in his laugh, like that in a
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: blackbird's call. Alone proclaimed it instinct told her of harmless
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: words she might use which would bring the plain avowal.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: But the hour was too delicate. As yet nothing was demanded,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: all was given. Her woman's vanity blossomed deliciously in the
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: atmosphere of a man's love. Her heart had not yet
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: received the inevitable summons to respond. She left it careless
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: in the gay hands of summer. When they drew up
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: before the front door of warehouse, he lifted her from
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: the dog cart and set her, laughing on her feet.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: How strong you are?
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: She cried. I'm not a.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Giant like Dick, said he, but I'm strong enough to
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: do what I like with a bit of a thing
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: like you. She entered the hall and glanced at him
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: provokingly over her shoulder. Don't be too sure of that,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: whatever I like, he repeated, striding towards her, but Viviette
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: laughed and fled lightly up the stairs and on the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: landing blew him an ironical kiss from her finger tips.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: When Viviette came down for lunch, she found Dick awaiting
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: her in the hall with a lowering face. He watched
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: her descend, and his hand on the mule confronted her. Well,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: said he indignantly, Well, she said, cheerfully, smiling. Well have
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: you got to save yourself? Lots of things. I had
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: a lovely drive, I got through all my business, and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I have a beautiful appetite. I also don't like standing
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: on a stair. At her look, he drew aside and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: let her pass into the hall. You promise to drive
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: with me, he said, following her to a chairry which
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: she sat. Driving with me is no great catch, perhaps,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: but a promise is a promise. You were late, said Viviette,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: my mother get me some silly nonsense about vegetables. You
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: mustn't know it was something I couldn't help. I really
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: don't see why you're so angry, Dick, she said, lifting
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: candid eyes. I explain why we are gone in my note.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't read the note, said Dick, wrathfully. A thousand
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: notes wouldn't have explained it. I tore the note into
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: little pieces. Viviete rose. If that's the way you treat me,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: she said, piqued, I've nothing more to say to you.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: It's the way you're treating me. He cried, with a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: clumsy man's awkward attempt at a gesture. I know I'm
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: not clever. I know I can't talk to you as
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: sweetly as other people. But I'm not a and I
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: deserve some consideration. Perhaps, after all, I might have the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: brains to jest and toss about words and shoot off epigrams.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: I'll drive if you like. Let me see here, a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: man who entrusts his heart to a woman has a
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: j for his banker. That's deevilish, smart, isn't it. Now?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Then there must be some repartee to it.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Viviete looked, at him, proudly, and moving in the direction
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: of the morning room door, said, with much dignity, that
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: depends on the way in which the woman you are
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: talking to has been brought up. My repartee is good morning. Dick,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: suddenly repentant, checked her. No, Vivier, don't go. I'm a
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: brute and a fool. Didn't mean it. Forgive me.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: I'd rather go on the rack.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Than hurt your little finger. But it maddened me. Can't
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: you believe it? It maddens me to see Austin. She
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: break into a little laugh and smiled dazzlingly on him.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: You're jealous, she interrupted, Good heavens, he cried patiently. Am
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: my cause Austin does everything his heart can desire. He's
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: always had it. I have nothing, nothing but one little girl.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: I love Ostin with all the world at his feet.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Comes down here. What chance has a rough yokele like
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: me against Austin? My God, it's the one you, lamb.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: He raised his clenched fists and brought them down against
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: his sides and turned away. The illusion and a consciousness
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: of Vancouver brought a smile into Vivitte's eyes. She had
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: a woman's sense of humor, which is not always urbane.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: When he turns to meet her, she shook her head reprovingly,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and David put your eye into the forethrump of the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: battle and carried off poor little Bathsheba. No one seems
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: to have concerned himself with what Bathsheba thought of it all.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Don't you consider she ought to have some choice in
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: the matter whether she should follow the sprightly David or
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: cling to the melancholy of your eye. Oh don't jest
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: like that, Viviette, he cried, It hurts. I'm sorry, Dick,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: she said innocently, But really, Bathsheba has her feelings. What
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: am I to do? Choose, dear, between us? Choose now,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: in Heaven's name, choose Dick, dear, said Viviette. All that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: was wickedly feminine in her, shouting her sexiest triumph song.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I want a longer time to choose between two hats.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Dick stamped his foot. The Nottin has been robbing me.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I'm growing desperate, Viviette, Tell me now, choose. He seized
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: her arms in his strong hands. She felt a delicious
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: little thrill of fear, but knowing her strength, she looked
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: up at him with a childish expression and said plaintively, Oh, Dick, dear,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I'm so hungry. He released her arms. She rubbed them ruefully.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've made horrid red rings. Fan's choosing a hard,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable hat that he was about to make some rejoinder
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: when the presence of missus Ware and Captain Holroyd at
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: the top of the stairs put an end to the encounter.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: The victory, such as it was, remained with Viviette. At lunch, Austin,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: his veins still tingling with the summer, laughed and jested lightheartedly.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: What a joy was to get away from stuffy courts
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: of justice into the pure Warwickshire air. What a joy
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: to drink of the wine of life? What was that
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: any those the drag of the wine could tell? What
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: about the poor devils that'd only get the dregs? Muttered Dick.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Austin declared that the real wine had no dregs. He
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: called his mother and Captain Holroyd to witness. Missus Ware
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: was not sure. Old Porte had to be very carefully decanted.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Did you remember the fusses dear father used to make
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: about it? She was very glad there was no more
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: left for Dick would be sure to drink it, and
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: he would go to his head or his toes, cried Viviette.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: When Nostin explained Viviete's meaning to his mother, who had
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: not an anusive habit of mind, she acquiesced placidly. Port
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: was not good for the gouty people. Her poor father
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: suffered severely. Ostin listened to her reminiscences and turned the.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Talk to the drive.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: It'd be more like driving through Paradise with Pegasu's harnessed
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: to Venus's car than anything else. You must take his
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: mother out and show her what a good judge of
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: horse flesh was. Dear old Dick, she's my mayre. Perhaps
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: I might have the privilege, said Dick. Oskin cried out
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: in all good faith, my dear old boys, are anything
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: especially mine or yours? In this house there's Dick's armory.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: That's his own, particular and private domain. You're going to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: explain it to me this afternoon, aren't you. You promised yesterday?
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: She drew Dick into talk away from the others. The
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: lecture on the armory was fixed for three o'clock, when
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: she would be free from the duty from which during
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: her stay at the manor house she had freed Viviette
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: of postprandual reading of the newspaper to missus Ware. But
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: her interest in his hobby for once failed to awaken
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: his enthusiasm. The dull jealousy of Austin against which his
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: honest soul had struggled successfully all his life long, had
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: passed beyond his control. These few days of Austin's wits
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: and visit had changed his cosmic view. Petty rebuffs, such
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: as the matters of the stables and the rural district Council,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: which formerly he would have regarded in the twidlight of
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: his mind as part of the unchangeable order of things
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: in which Austin had destined to shine resplendently and heated
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Limma Austin, the arc lamp and heath of tallow dip
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: became magnified into grievances and insults intolerable. Esau could not
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: arrage more against Jacob the supplant ear than did Dick
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: when Austin carried off viviet.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: From beneath his nose.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Until this visit of Austin, he had no idea that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: he would find a rival in his brother. The discovery
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: was a shock, causing his world to reel and setting
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: free all the pent up genesis and grievances of a lifetime.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: Everything he'd given up to Austin, if not willingly, at
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: least graciously highly beneath the rough tanned hide of his
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: homely face, all pain, disappointment, and humiliation. But now Ostin
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: had come and swooped off with his one ewe lamb.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Not the Viviette had encouraged him by more than the
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: real but mocking affection with which she had treated her
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: bare foster brother ever since her elf in childhood. In
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: a dim way, he realized this and absolved her from
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: blame less dimly also, he felt his mental and social inferiority,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: his lack of warrant in offering her marriage, But his
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: great rugged manhood wanted her, the woman with an imperious,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: savage need which took all the training of civilization to repress.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: Viviet Alone in her maidenly splendor, he could have fought
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: it down, but the vision of her another man, entering
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: light hearted and debonair into those precincts maddened him. Let
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: loose primitive instincts of hatred and revenge, and robbed him
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: of all interest in the toys with which men used
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: to slay each other centuries ago. Hostin, being nearest the door,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: opened it for the ladies to pass out. Vivierte, going
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: out last, looked up at him with one of her witches.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Glances don't be very long, she said. Before Ostin could
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: resume his seat, Dick leaped up. Austin, Look here I've
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: summing to say to you, well, said Austin. Dick pulled
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: out a cigar, bit the end off, and, finding that
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: he had ripped the outer skin, threw it angrily into
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: the fireplace. My dear old boy, said Austin, What are
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: the name of all that neurotic? Is the matter I
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: summy to say to you? Dick repeated something that concerns myself,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: my life. I must throw myself on your generosity. Hostin,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: his heart full of the latanthropy, thrust his hands into
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: his pockets and smiled indulgently on Dick. Don't, old chap,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I know all about it. Viviet has told me everything. Dick,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: his head full of passion, staggered in amazement. Viviet has
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: told you, of course, why shouldn't she? Dick groped his
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: way to the door. It were better for both that
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: he should not stay. Austin, left alone, laughed not unkindly.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Dear old Dick. It was a shame to tease him,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: But what a different expression on his face would wear
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: to morrow. When the maid brought in his coffee, he
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: sipped it with enjoyment, forgetful for once of its lack
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: of excellence. There was one person, however, in the house,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: who saw things clearly, and the more clearly she saw them,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: the less did they seem satisfactorily ordered. This was Catherine Holroyd,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: a sympathetic observer and everybody's intimate. She known the family
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: since her childhood, spent in a great neighboring house which
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: had now long since passed from her kin into alien hands.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: She had no viviette when she first came with her
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: changeling face, a toddling child of three, to the manor house.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: She had grown up with the brothers until her marriage.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: The place had been her second home. Her married life,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: mostly spent abroad, had somewhat broken the intimacy, but her widowhood,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: after the first few hopeless months, had renewed it, although
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: her visits were comparatively rare. On the other hand, a little,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: daintily furnished London house in Victoria Square was always open
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: to such of the family as happened to be in town. Now,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: as Ostin was the most frequently in town, seeing that
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: he lived there all the year round, with the accept
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: of the long vacation and odd flying visits to Warwickshire,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: to Ostin was her door most frequently open. Her deep
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: affection existed between them, deeper perhaps than either realized. To
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: be purely brotherly in at due towards a woman whom
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: you are fond of and who is not your sister,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and to be purely sisterly in your attitude towards a
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: man whom you are fond of and who is not
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: your brother, are ideals of spiritual emotion very difficult to
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: attain in this respectably organized but sex written world. During
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: the dark time of her early widowhood, it was to
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: Austin's delicate tact and loyalty that she had owed her
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: first weak grasp on life. It was he that had
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: brought her to a sense of outer things, to a
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: realization that, in spite of her own gray sky, there
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: was still a glory on the earth. He was her
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: trusted friend ally and adviser, who never failed her, and
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: she contemplated him always with a heart full of somewhat
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: exaggerated gratitude, which is as far on the road to
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: love as it is given to many women to travel.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: She barely reached the top of the hall stairs on
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: her way to spend her reading hour with missus Ware,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: when she saw Dick come out of the dining room
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: with the false and angry face, the veins standing out
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: on his thick bull's neck. She felt frightened. Something foolish
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: and desperate would happen. Before long. She was all to
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: give Austin a warning word with an excuse to missus Ware.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: She went down again to the dining room and found
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Austin in the coziest and sunniest frame of mind imaginable.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Obviously there'd been no serious quarrel between the brothers. Can
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I have a few minutes with you? Austin A thousand?
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: He said, gaily, what's gone wrong? It has nothing to
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: do with me.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: She said.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: He looked amusedly into her eyes. I know it's about Viviette.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Confess yes, she replied soberly. It's about Viviette. You've seen it.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I make no bones about it. You can believe the
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: very worst. I've fallen utterly and hopelessly in love with her.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: I am at your mercy. This beginning was not quite
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: what Catherine had expected. It is confidence way he had
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: taken matters out of her hands. She not anticipated a
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: downright confession. She felt conscious of a little, dull and
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: wholly reprehensible ache at her heart. She sighed, aren't you
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: please Catherine? He asked with a man's selfishness. I suppose
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: I must be for your sake, but I must also
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: sigh a little. I knew you would be falling in
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: love sooner or later. Only I hoped it would be later.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: But er covet you. It is the doom of all
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: such friendships. I don't see anything like a doom about it,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: my dear, said he. The friendship will continue. Viviette loves
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: you dearly.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: She took up a.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Peach from her dish to her hand, regarded it for
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: a moment, absent mindedly, and delicately replaced it. Our friendship
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: will continue, of course, but the particular essence of it,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the little sentimentality of ownership will be gone, won't it.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Austin rose and bent over Catherine's chair in some concern.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: You'll not distress Catherine. Oh, now, you've been such a kind,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: loyal friend to me during a very dark and lonely time,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: brought sunshine into my life when I needed it most.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: That I should be a wicked woman if I didn't
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: rejoice at your happiness. And we've been nothing more than friends,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: nothing more, said Austin. She was smiling now, and he
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: caught a gleam of mischief in her eyes. And yet
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: there was an afternoon last winter, his face colored. Don't
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: throw my wickedness in my face. I remember that afternoon.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I came, in fact, with the prospect of dinner at
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: the club and a dismal evening over a brief in
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: front of me, and found you sitting before the fire.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: The picture of rest and comfortableness and companionship, I think
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: was the homely smell of hot buttered toasted in it.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: Then nearly asked you to marry me. And I have
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: been feeling particularly lonely.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: She laughed.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Would you've accepted me? Do you think that is quite
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: a fair question. We've always been frank with one another
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: since our childhood, said he.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: She smiled.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Has Viviette accepted you? He broke away with her with
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: a gay laugh and lit a cigarette. Your feminine subtlety?
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Does you credit Catherine? And has she?
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: No, not exactly will she? He put his hand down
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: on the table. By heavens, I'll maker, I've got most
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: of the things I wanted during my life, and it'll
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: be odd if I don't get the thing I want
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: more than all the rest put together. No answer my question,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: my dear Catherine, he continued, teasingly, Would you have married me?
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: The smile faded from Catherine's face. She could not parry
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: the question as she had done before, and it probed depths.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: She said, very seriously and sweetly, I should have done, Austin,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: as I always shall do, whatever you asked me to do.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't ask me, very glad for the
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: love a woman gives a man dive within me, you know.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: He took her hand and kissed it. My dear, said he,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: you are the truest friend that ever man had. There
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: was a short pause. Austin looked out of the window,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: and Catherine wiped away some moisture in her eyes. This
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: scene of sentimentality was not at all what she had
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: come for. Soon she rose with a determined air and
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: joined Austin by the window. It was as a true
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: friend that I wanted to speak to you to day,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: to warn you about what about Dick, Austin. He's madly
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: in love with Viviette too. Austin stared at her for
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: a moment, incredulously Dick in love in love with Veret.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: Then he broke into a peal of laughter. Oh my
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: dear Catherine, why it's absurd, It's preposterous, it's too funny.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: But seriously, Austin, But seriously, he said, with laughing eyes.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: Such an idea has never penetrated into old Dick's wooden skowl. You,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: dear women, are always making up romance. Y vivit on
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: the same old fairy and great brown bear turns that
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: they have been ever since they first met. She makes
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: him dance on his hind legs. He wants to hug her.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: She hits him over the nose and he growls. I
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: warn you, said, Catherine, great brown bears in love are dangerous.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: But he isn't in love, he argued, lafeheartedly. If he were,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: you would want to stay with Viviete. But he's eating
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: his heart out, apparently to leave us all and go
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: and plowfields and herd cattle abroad. The life he lives here,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: my good mother's somewhat arbitrary ways, and one thing and
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: another have at last got on his nerves. I wonder
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: now how the dear old Chapper stood it so long.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: That's what is wrong with him, not blighted affection. I
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: can only tell you what I know, said Catherine.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: If you won't believe me, it's.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: Not my fault. Keep your eyes open and you will see.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: And you keep your eyes open to morrow morning and
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you will see, he said, with his bright self confidence.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: So Catherine sighed at the obtuseness and inconvincibility of men,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: and went to read the Leader in the Daily Telegraph.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: To missus ware, Austin, with a smile on his lips,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: wandered out into the sunshine in search of Viviette. Before
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: they parted, however, Catherine turned by the door. Are you
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: coming to the armory to hear Dick's lecture? Of course,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: said Austin gaily. The dear old Chap loves an audience
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: end of chapter three, chapter four of Viviette by William
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: recording by Simon Evers, Chapter four, the famous Dueling Pistols.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Dick's great grandfather, Wild dick Ware, as he used to
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: be called by the country side, besides other enormities of indiscretion,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: committed an architectural crime. Having begun to form the collection
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: of arms, which was Dick's pride and hobby, he felt
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: the need of a fencing gallery where they could be
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: displayed to advantage. None of the rooms in the house
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: were suitable. Building a new wing would cost too much, So,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: like a good old English gentleman, accustomed to get what
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: he wanted, he ruthlessly cut off a slice of the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: nobly proportioned morning room, containing a beautifully mullioned casement at
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: the side, knocked a French window through one end so
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: that he could wander in and out from the terrace,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: knocked a door through the other so that it opened
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: on a corner of the hall, forgot all about the fireplace,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: and left his descendants to make the best of things.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: This long, narrow, comfortless strip of a room was Dick's
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: armory den and refuse.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: Huge.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: It was furnished with extreme simplicity. At the further end,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: two rusty leather arm chairs flanked a cast down stove
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: in the corner, and were balanced in the other and
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: darker corner by a knee whole writing desk, littered with
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: seeds and bulbs and spurs and bits of fishing tackle,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: and equipped for its real purpose with a forbidding looking
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: pen and ink pot and a torn piece of weather
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: beaten blotting paper. At about a third of the way
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: down from the terrace door, a great screen covered with
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: American cloth cut the room almost in two. Against this
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: screen stood two suits of beautifully finished fifteenth century Italian armor.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Between them and the further end of the room ran
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: a long deal table with the green bays cover. An
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: odd dilapidated chair or two stood lonely and discontinate against
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: the opposite wall. The floor was covered with old matting
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: and a few faded rugs. The walls, however, and the
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: cases ranged along them, gave an air of distinction to
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: the room. There hung trophies of arms of all sorts,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: a bewildering array of spiky stars like the monstrous decorations
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: on the breasts of a brobic naggli and diplomatist, of
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: guns and pistols of all ages and nationalities, of halberds,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: pikes and partisans, of curved cimeters, great two handed swords,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: and long, glittering rapiers with precious hilts. There too were
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: coats of chain mail and great iron gauntlets, and rows
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: of dinted helmets formed a cornice round the gallery. It
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: was Dick's sanctuary, where, according to family tradition, he was
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: supposed to be immune from domestic attacks. Any One, it
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: is true, could open the door and worry him from
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: the threshold, but no one entered without his invitation. Here
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: he was master. Here he spent solitary hours, dreaming dreams,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: wrestling with devils, tying trout flies, making up medicines for
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: his dogs, and polishing and arranging and rearranging the armor
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: and weapons until the furies got hold of him. He
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: was a simple soul, content with simple things. The happiest
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: times of his life had been passed here among the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: inanimate objects which he loved, and here he was now
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: spending the hours of his greatest agony. The words he
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: just turned from Austin rang like a crazy, deafening chime
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: through his ears. He sat in one of the old
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: leather arm chairs, gripping his coarse hair. Was unthinkable. Again,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: it was true, Viviete told Austin the thing that blowed
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: sacred at the bottom of his soul. The scene danced
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: vividly before his eyes, the two bright creatures making a
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: mock of him and his love, laughing merrily at the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: trick that had played him, pitying him contemptuously. There was
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: a flame at his heart, a burning lump in his throat. Mechanically,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: he drew from a little covered near by a bottle
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: of whiskey, a siphon, and at last the drink he
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: mixed and swallowed contained little soda. It increased the fire
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: in his heart, and he paced the long room in
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: crazy indignation. Every nerve in his body quivered with a
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: sense of unforgivable insult and deadly outrage. Austin's face loomed
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: before him like that of a mocking devil. He had
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: hell in his throat, And again he tossed down a
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: dose of whisky and threw himself into the arm chair.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: The daily paper lay on a stool at his hand.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: He took it up and tried to read, but the
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: prince swam into thin black smudges. He dashed the papers
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: of the ground and gave himself up to his madness.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: After a while he remembered his appointment with Catherine. At
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: three o'clock. He glanced at his watch. It was a
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: quarter to the hour, and beyond a cleaning yesterday afternoon.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: No preparations were made in an automatic way. He unlocked
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: some cases and drew out his treasures. Wiped the sword
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: blades tenderly with chamis leather, and laid them on the
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: long baize covered table. Here and there from the all
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: is he selected a helmet, the great mace used by
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: his ecclesiastical ancestor. He unhooked from the wall. Soon the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: table was covered with weapons selected in a dazed way.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: He knew not why. A helmet fell from his hands
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: on the floor with a ring of steel. Its visor
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: grinned at him, the fool, the tricked, the supplanted. He
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: kicked it with a silly laugh. Then he pulled himself together,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: picked it up, and examined it in great fear lest
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: harm should have happened to it. He put it on
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: the table, and in order to steady his nerves, broke
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: another large whisky and small soda. He scanned the table, perplexed.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: Some accustomed and important exhibit was not in its place.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: What was it?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: He clasped his head in his hands and strove to
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: clear his mind for a moment from obsession. It was
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: something historical, something unique, something he had but lately mentioned
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: to Catherine, something intimately connected with this very room. At last,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: memory responded. He placed a chair between the two suits
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: of armor that stood against the screen and the end
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: of the long table, and mounting, took a mahogany case
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: from a shelf. Then he sat on the chair, put
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: the case on the table, and opened it by means
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: of a small ornamental key. He contained a brace of
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: old fashioned duling pistols, such as were used at the
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: beginning of the nineteenth century. They were long barreled, ivory handled,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: businesslike weapons provided with miniature rambots. The velvet lined interior
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: of the case was divided into various compartments, two for
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: the pistols, one for powder flask, one for bullets, one
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: for percussion caps, and one for wads. In his dull
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: automatic way, his mind whirling madly in other spheres. He
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: cleaned the pistols, shook the powder flask to make certain
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: that powder was still there. He loved to pour out
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: a few grains into his hand and show the power
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: that had remained in the flask for generations, ever since
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: the pistols were last used. Counted the caps, which had
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: counted many times before, looked stupidly into the only empty compartment,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: only to remember that there never had been any wants,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: and finally, grasping one of the pistols, took aim at
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: a barb on his writing desk at the end of
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: the room. He been tricked and robbed and mocked. He
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: could see the scene when she had told Austin. He
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: could hear Austin's pitiless laughter. He could picture her mimicking
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: his rough speech. He could picture them faithless, heartless, looking
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: into each other's eyes. Suddenly he passed his hand over
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: his forehead. Was he getting mad? Hitherto it? Heard their
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: voices in the nimbness of imagination. Now he heard them
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: loud and vibrating sound. Was it real or imaginary? He
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: drew deep, panting breaths. Dick's not here, said Vivierte's voice
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: from the terrace. He's forgotten ready, my dear, I don't
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: very much care, Ostin replied, where you are? I am happy.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: I wish that telegram would come. It's quite time. Don't
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: you think we'd better tell Dick to day? No, no,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: to morrow? After all? What is the good of hiding
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: it from him? A laugh from Austin. You think we
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: ought to put him out of his misery at once?
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: It was real Those two were talking in flesh and
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: blood on the terrace. They were talking of him, his
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: misery that had but one meaning, And the devil laughed unconsciously.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: His grip tightened on the butt of the pistol. He listened, Yes,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: said Viviette. It would be kinder. Oh, I stick to
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: the birth the idea. It would be more dramatic, damned villain.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: Dick muttered.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: I want to day, said Vivierte, and I want to morrow.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: You speak as if you were my lord and master,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: said Viviette in the mocking tones. Dick knew so well,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: no other man shall be if I can help it.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: The clear, young, masterful voice rang down the gallery. Dick
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: slid his chair noiselessly to the side of the stregreen
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: which hid him from the terrace window, and bending down low,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: peered round the edge. He saw them, laughing, flushed, silhouetted
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: against the green, distant trees. Ostin was looking at her
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: with a light of passion in his eyes. She looked
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: up at him, ragiant, elusive, triumphant, with parted lips. Please
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: to remember we were talking of Dick. Oh, confound Dick,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: and this he doesn't coda.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: I met her, and I'll show you.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: He showed her in the one and only way. She
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: struggled for a second in his arms and received his
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: kiss with a little laugh. There moved to the far
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: lintel of the door. Dick's whirled reeled red before his eyes.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: He stood up and held the pistol, pointed, Damn him,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: damn him. He would kill him, kill him like a dog.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Some reflexed motion of the brain prompted action. Feverishly he
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: ran the charge of powderedne the pistol, wadds bit of
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: the newspaper lying on the floor, then a bullet, then
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: a wad rammed home. Then the cap was done at
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: lightning speed. Murder red, horrible, murder blazed in his soul.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: Damn him, he would kill him.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: He started into the middle of the room just as
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: they walked away, and he sprang to the door and
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: leveled the pistol. Then reaction came. No, not like a dog.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: He couldn't shoot his brother like a dog. His arm
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: fell helplessly at his side. He turned back again into
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: the room, staggering and knocking himself against the cases by
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: the walls like a drunken man. The sweat rolled down
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: his face. He put the pistol beside the other on
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: the table. For some moments he stood a hulking statue,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: shaken as though stricken with earthquake, white faced, white lipped,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: staring with crossed blue eyes at nothing. At last he
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: recovered power of motion, drank another whisky, and replaced bottle,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: siphon and glass in the cupboard. He found himself suddenly
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: clear headed, able to think he was not in the
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: least degree drunk. To test himself, he took up a
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: sword from the table, and, getting the right spot, balanced
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: it on his fingers. He could speak too, as well
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: as anybody. He turned to a long Moorish musket inlaid
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: with gems and mother of pearl, and began to describe it.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: He was quite fluent and sensible, Although his voice sounded
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: remote in his own ears. He was satisfied he had
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: his nerves under control. He would go through the next
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: hour without any one suspecting the madness that was in
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: his mind. He was absolutely sober and self collected. He
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: walked along a seam of the matting that ran the
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: whole length of the gallery, and did not deviate from
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: it one hair's breadth. Now he was ready, perfectly prepared
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: to deliver his lecture. He sat down and picked up
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: the newspaper, and the print was clear. The weather still
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: continues to be fine over the British Islands. The anti
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: cyclone has not yet passed away from the Bay of Bis.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: He read the jargon through to the end, but it
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: seemed as if it were not he who was reading,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: but some one else, a quiet, placid gentleman, deeply versed
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: in the harmless science of meteorology. Where his real self
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: was he didn't know, so he toyed with the illusion.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: A voice broke on his ear, coming seemed from another world.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: Dick may be come in. He rose, saw Katherine Austin
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: and Viviete on the threshold. He invited them to enter
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: and shook Katherine by the hand, as if he had
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: not met her for a long time. Viviette danced down
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: to the table. Now, Dick, we're all here. Put on
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: your most learned and antiquarian manner, ladies and gentlemen, I
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: call on mister Richard Ware to deliver his interesting lecture
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: on the genious instruments men have devised for butchering each other.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: Dick put his hand to his head in a confused way.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: His real self was beginning to merge itself into that
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: of the quat gentlemen, and there was a curious red
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: mist before his eyes. Come on, cried Viviette. Look at Catherine.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: Our mouth is watering for tales of bloodshed. Dick could
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: not remember his usual starting point. He stared stupidly at
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: the table for a moment, then picked up a weapon
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: at random and made a great effort. This is a
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: Toledo sixteenth century's sword, reported to belong to Cosmo de Medici.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: You see here, the you see here the palis the
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: Medici emblem. The one next to it is a sword
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: of the same period and used by a meaner person.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: I should prefer it if there were any killing to
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: be done. He described one or two other weapons, then
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: glancing over his shoulder at Austin and Viviette, who were
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: talking in low confidential tones a little way off. He
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: stood stock still, and the beads of sweat gathered on
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: his forehead. Catherine's voice recalled his wandering wits. This is
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: a cross bow, isn't it?
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: The thing?
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: The ancient married have shot the albatross with.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: A cross bow? Said Dick.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: The ironloop at the end was to put one's foot
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: into when one wanted to load it. And this, said Catherine,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: pointing to a long steel thing where the great knob
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: adorned with cruel spikes, is the family mace. I suppose
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: I've seen it before. I remember, Yes, that's the mace.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: What a blood thirty set of people you must have been.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: Austin came up with a laugh. There's a legend amongst
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: us that once mother was left alone in the house
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: and insisted on having this mace near her bed so
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: as to defend her. Something at Burglar's. But why do
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: you need me to tell the story, dick. Dick clenched
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: his fists and muttering something, turned and ascended the gallery
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: above the screen Viviette followed him. You're not doing it
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: at all nicely. I don't think you want to. Can
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: you wonder at that? He said hoarsely. Viviete played deliciously
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: with the fire. Why I'll be intelligent enough for you,
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: she asked, with childish innocence.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: I haven't the faintest idea. All I know is that
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: you may as well be polite at any rate, he laughed.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: Ordinarily he had little sense of humor, but now he
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: had the flames in his heart, and the hell in
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: his throat, and red mist before his eyes. Oh I'll
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: be polite, he growled. By God, I'll be polite while
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: may be suffering the tortures of the damned. But one
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: must smirk and be polite. He snatched up the first
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: thing to hand, a helmet that stood on a case,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: and brought it down below the screen. Catherine Vivierte says,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not delivering my lecture properly. I beg your pardon.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: I'm rather shy at first, but I get warmed up
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: to my subject. What would you like to hear about?
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: Catherine exchanged a glance with Austin. Don't you think we
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: might put off the rest till another day. Yes, old chap,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: put it off till to morrow. It's your birthday, you know, Berthie.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: What's that got to do with it? Who knows what
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: may happen between then and now? No, No, I'm all right,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: he cried wildly. You're here and you've got to listen.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: I'll get it a fine form presently. Look, he said,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: pointing to the helmet he was holding. Here is a
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: Cromwelliam Morion, who was picked up by an ancestor at Nasby,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: has a clean cut in it. That's where an honest
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: gentleman's sword found its way to the knave's skull, the puritanical,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: Priggish canting knave. He threw the helmet with a clatter
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: on to the table, as if it had been the
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: knave's canting head. He caught up a weapon. This is
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: a partisan. All you have to do when you get
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: it inside a man but to turn it round a bit,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: and the wound gaped and tore. This tassel is for
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: catching the blood and preventing it from greeting the handle.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: Here's a beauty. He went on, taking a sword from
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: the row he had laid out for display and holding
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: it out for cats inspection. One of the pets of
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: the collection a French duweling sword of the middle of
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. He gave of fence as flourish responsive
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: to the hilt. Say, Lah, what's to be good to
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: live in? Those days? When you could whipness from your
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: side at a wrong done and have the life of
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: the man that wronged you the sweet morning air, the
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: patch of green turf, shoes off in shirt and breeches
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: with the eyes of the man you hate in front
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: of you, and this glittering, beautiful, snaky thing thirsty for
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: his heart's blood. And then he stood in tears, left
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: hand curved, holding intense fiercely the eyes of an imaginary opponent.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: And then a little chitter chatter of steel, and suddenly, ha,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: the blade disappears up to the hilt, and a great
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: red stain comes on the shirt, and the man throws
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: up his arms and falls, and.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: You've killed him. He's dead, dead, dead, Ha. What a
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: time to live in?
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: Catherine uttered a little cry of fear and grew pale.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Viviette clapped her hands. Bravo, Dick, Bravo, Dick, cried Austin
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: most dramatically done. I never knew you were such an actor,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: said Viviette. Dick stood panting, his hand on the hilt
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: of the sword, the point on the floor. I really
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: do think I've had enough.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: Said Catherine.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: No, not yet, he said, in a thick voice. I've
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: not shown you half yet. I've something much more interesting.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: But Dick, Viviette interrupted her. You must stay. It's only
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: beginning to be exciting if you only do the rest
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: as beautifully as you did that. Dick, I'll stay here
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: all day. Dick, with a curious outward calm contrasting with
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: the fury of his mocking counter, put down the sword
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: and went to the end of the table where the
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: case of pistols lay. At any rate, I must show you,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: said he, the famous Julian twistols. They were the very
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: pistols in the duel between his great grandfather and Lord Escombe,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: said Vivierte. They're not being used from that day he
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: killed Lawrescombe. By the way to all this, the case
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: is just as it was left. I was going to
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: tell you the story yesterday, I remember, said Catherine, by
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: way of civility. But missus ware stopped you. She was
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: a mild natured woman, and the realistic conjuring up of
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: goaud ripping tassels and bloody shirts upset her, and she
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: desired to get away. She also saw that Dick was
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: abnormally excited, and suspected that he'd been drinking. Her delicate
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: senses shrank from drunkenness. You must tell the story, cried Vivierte.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: It's so romantic. You like romantic things, Catherine. The great
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: grandfather was a dick whare too wild dick Ware. They
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: used to call him go on dick Dick paused for
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: a moment. He had a curious, dull, befogged sensation of
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: being compelled to do things independently of volition. Presently he spoke.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: It happened in this very room a hundred years ago.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: Lord Escombe and my great grandfather were friends, intimate friends
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: from boyhood. Wild dick Ware was madly in love with
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: a girl who had more or less become engaged to him.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: Now I came to his knowledge that Lord Escomb had
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: been using blackard means to win away the girl's affections.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: And one day they were here, he moved a pet
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: l two to one side, just as Austin and I
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: are now, and the girl over there, Yvierte, with a
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: gay laugh, took up her position on the spot to
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: which he pointed, Just in this identical place, I know
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: the story. It's a lovely an old peninsula comrade of
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: Wild dick Ware's was here too, a man called Hawkins.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: Catherine shall be Hawkins, cried Vivierte, and in his presence
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: dick continued. Wild dick Ware told the girl that he
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: was mad for love of her, but then he would
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: not force her choice. Yet one of those two, himself
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: or Lord Eskom, she must choose for good and for all.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: She could not speak for shame or confusion. He said,
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: throw your handkerchief to whichever of us you love, and
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: they stood side by side like this. He raised himself
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: by Austin's side, opposite the girl, and she threw the handkerchief,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: cried Viviette, Throw yours, said dick. He looked at her
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: with fierce intensity, beneath rugged brows Austin with laughing challenge.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: She knew that she was the object of each man's desire,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: and her sexes triumph thrilled through her from head to foot.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: She knew that this jesting choice would have serious import.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: For some seconds, the three remained stocked still. She glanced
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: flatteringly from one man to the other. Which should she choose?
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: Her heart beat wildly, choose one or the other? She
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: must outside that room no man lived to him she
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: would marry. Each second strained the situation further. At last,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: her spirit rose in feminine revolt against the trap which
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Dick had set for her, and with a malicious look,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: she threw the handkerchief at Ostin's feet. He picked it
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: up and gallantly put it to his lips. In the story,
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Viviete, she threw it to Lord Escombe. Ostin is
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: Lord Escombe.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: Night Dick?
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: Where cried Dick in a strangled voice, Wild Dick, whare
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: And this is what he did. He dragged the girl
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: out of the room. First he took Vivitt by the
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: arm and roughly thrust her past the screen. Then that
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: case was on the table, and without a word, while
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: dick Ware came up to Lord Escombe so and said choose.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: He gripped the pistols by the barrels, crossed them and
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: presented the butts to Oustin. Ostin waved them away with
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: a deprecatory gesture.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: And a smile.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: Very old man, I can't enter into the spirit of
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: it like that. You're splendid. But if I took a hand,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: it would be tomfoolery. Oh do do, cried Viviete. Let
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: us go through with it and see just how the
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: duel was fought. It'll be thrilling. You'll have to fall
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: dead like Lord Escombe, and I'll burst into the room
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: and tear my hair over your poor corpse. Do ask him,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: for my sake, he yielded any foolishness. For her sake,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: he took a pistol. You'll have to be Major Hawkins, Catherine,
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: he said, lightly, as if inviting her to condescend to
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: some child's game. But Catherine put her hand before her
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: face and shrank back. No, no, no, I couldn't. I
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: don't like it. Then I'll be Major Hawkins, said Vivier,
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: you will, Dick laughed harshly. Then be it so I
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: know just.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: What they did.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: She placed the man back to back so that Austin
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: faced the further end of the room and Dick of
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: the open French window. They were to take three paces
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: count one, two, three, and at the end of the
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: third pace, they were to turn and fire. Dick felt
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: the touch of Austin's shoulder against tears, and the flame
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: in his heart grew fiercer, and the hell in his
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: throat more burning, and the universe whirled round in a
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: red mist. Viviete moved to the weapon laden table. Now one, two, three,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: they paced and turned. Dick leveled his pistol instantly at Oustin,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: with murderous hate in his eyes, and drew the trigger.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: The pistol clicked harmlessly. Hostin's self conscious did not raise
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: his pistol, but Dick, broadening his chest, glared at him
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: and shouted wildly, madly, far, damn you far, Why the
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: devil don't you fire? The cry was real, vibrant with
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: fury and despair. Austin looked at him for an amazed moment, then,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: throwing his pis onto one of the arm chairs, he
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: came up to him.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: What fools game are you playing, Dick? Are you drunk?
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: Catherine, with a low cry, flung herself between them and,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: clinging to Dick's arm, took the pistol from his hand.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: No more of this, No more, the duel has been
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: too much like reality already. Dick staggered to a straight
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: basket chair by the wall, and, sitting down, wiped his forehead.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: He groaned deathly white. The flames had been suddenly quenched
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: within him, and he felt cold and sick. Viviete, in alarm,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: ran to his side. What was the matter was he fate?
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: Let her take him into the fresh air. Austin came up,
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: but at his approach Dick rose and shrank away, glancing
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: at him furtively out of bloodshot eyes.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, the heater has impressed me. I'm not well. I'll
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: go out.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: He stumbled, blinded towards the French window. Viviete followed him,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: but he turned on her rudely and flushed.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: To her back.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not well, I tell you I don't want your help.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: Let me alone. He passed through the French window on
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: to the terrace. The sky had clouded over and a
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: drizzle had begun to fall. Vivia had felt curiously frightened,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: but she put on an air of bravado as she
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: came down the gallery. Have you all been rehearsing this
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: little comedy? No mirthful response lit either face. She read
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: condemnation in both pairs of eyes. For the first time
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: in her life, she felt daunted, humiliated. She knew nothing
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: more beyond the fact that, in deliberate coquetry she had
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: pitied brother against brother, and that something cruel and tragical
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: had happened for which she was being judged. Neither spoke.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: She summoned her outer dignity, tossed her pretty head, and
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: went out by the end door, which Austin, in cold
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: politeness held open for her. Then she mounted to her bedroom, and,
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: throwing herself on her bed, burst into a passion of
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: meaningless weeping. Catherine handed Austin the pistol which he had
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: taken from Dick's hand. Now you'll believe what I told you.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: I believe it, said Austin, gravely, that duel was not
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: all play acting. That said he was absurd. Dick has
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: been drinking. It was a silly face. Vivieate ate him
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: on until he seemed to take it seriously. He did
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: take it seriously, Austin, He's in a dangerous mood. If
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: I were you, I should be careful. Take a woman's warning.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: He took for a moment in deep thought, his gaze
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: absently fixed on the weapon, he held in his hand. Suddenly,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: at lint of something strange caught his eye. He started,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: but recovered himself quickly. I'll take your mourning, Catherine. Here's
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: my hand upon it. A moment later, when he was alone,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: he uncocked the pistol Dick's pistol. That lint had not
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: been imaginary. It was a percussion cap with trembling fingers.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: He picked it off the nipple. He passed his hand
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: across his damp forehead, for he felt faint with dread.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: But the task had to be accomplished. He unscrewed the
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: ramrod and picked up the wad a piece of white paper,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: which dropped.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: On the floor.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: From the barrel held downward, a bullet dropped with a dead,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: fateful thud on the floor. More paper wad as thithering
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: shower of gunpowder. He put the pistol down and took
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: up the one he himself had used from the chair
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: where he had thrown it. It was unloaded. His eye
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: fell on the bits of white paper. He picked them
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: up and unfolded them. The daily newspaper lay by the
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: stove with the corner torn. Accusing me, then he understood.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: He sank into a chair paralyzed with horror. It was
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: Dick's pistol was loaded. Dick had meant to murder him.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: By the grace of God, the pistol had missed far,
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: but Dick, his own brother, had meant to murder him.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: An hour later, he walked out of the room a
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: case of pistols under his arm, with the drawn face
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: of an old man. It was not until Dick had
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: stumbled five or six miles through the dunching dample that
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: the thought reached his dulled brain that he left the
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: pistols loose for any one to examine. The thought was
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: like a great stone hitting him on the side of
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: the head. He turned and began to run homewards, like
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: a hunted man in desperate flight. End of chapter four,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: Chapter five of Viviette by William John Locke. This LibriVox
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain recording by Simon Evers.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: Chapter five a crisis. Viviete, having repaired the disorder caused
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: by her tears, went down to tea missus ware Catherine
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: and a curate, deliberately calling or taking shelter from the rain,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: were in the drawing room. Austin, to his mother's mild
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: astonishment had sent down a message to the effect that
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: he was busy. On all the occasions, Viviete would have
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: flirted monstrously with the clerical youth and sent him away
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: undecided whether to offer to share his lodgings under hundred
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: pounds a year with her, or to turn Catholic and
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: become a monk. But now she had no mind to flirtation.
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: She left him to the undisturbing wiles of missus Ware,
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: and petted and surreptitiously fed Dick's Irish terrier, whose brown
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: eyes looked pathetic inquiry as to his master's whereabouts. She
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: was sobered by the uncomprehended scene in the armory, sobered
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: by Dick's violence, and by Austin's final coldness. A choice
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: had been put before her in deadly earnest. She had
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: refused to make one, but the choice would have to
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: be maeyed very soon unless she sent both her lover's packing,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: a step which she did not for a moment to contemplate.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: You must promise to marry one or the other, and
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: end this tension, said Catherine. A little later, after the
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: Curate had gone with missus Ware to look at her greenhouses.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: I wish to goodness I could marry them both, said Viviette.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: Have a month with each turn and turn about. It
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: would be ideal. It would be altogether horrid, exclaimed Catherine.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: How could such a thought enter your head? I suppose
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: it must have empted every woman's head who has two
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: men she's fond of in love with her at once.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: I said yesterday that it was great fun being a woman.
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: I find it's an imposition. For Heaven's sake, child, make
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: up your mind quickly, said Catherine. Viviette sighed, which should
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: it be, Dick, with his great love and rough tenderness
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: and big protecting arms, or Austin, with his conquering ways,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: his wit, his charm, his perception. Austin could give her
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: the luxury that sensuous nature, delighted in social position, the
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: brilliant life of London. What could Dick give her? It
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: would always be a joy to dress herself for Austin.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: Dick would be content if she went about in raiment
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: made of dusters and bath towels. In return, what could
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: she give each of these men? She put the question
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: to herself. She was not mercenary or heartless, She gave
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: of herself freely and loved the giving. What could she
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: give to Oustin? What could she give to Dick? These questions,
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: in her sober mood, weighed the others down. When the
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: rain ceased and a pale sun had dried the gravel,
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: she went out into the ground by herself and faced
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: the problem. She sighed again many times, if only they
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: would let her have her fun out and give her answers.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: Six months heads, her meditations were cut short by the
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: arrival of a telegraph boy on his bicycle at the
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: front gate. He gave her the telegram. It was for Austin.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: Her heart beat, she went into the house with the
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: yellow envelope containing Dick's destiny, and mounted to the little
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: room off the first landing, which had been Austin's private
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: study since his boyhood. She knocked Austin's voice bade her enter.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: He rose from the desk where pen in hand he'd
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: been sitting before a blank sheet of paper, and without
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: a word, took the telegram. She noticed with the shock
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: that he had curiously changed the quick, brisk manner had gone.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: His face was gray. It is the telegram, isn't it.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: She asked eagerly. Yes, said he, handing it to her.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: It's from Lord Elverton, she read the very man. Send
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: him along to me early to morrow. Hope he can
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: start immediately. Oh how splendid, she exclaimed, with a little
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: gasp of happiness, How utterly splendid. Thank Heaven, Yes, thank Heaven.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: Astin acquiesce gravely. I forgot to mention to you that
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: Lord Everton knows Dick personally. He added, after a pause.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: They met at my house the last time Dick was
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: in London. This is good news, said Viviete. At last
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: I can give him a birth the present worth having.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: He will not be here for his birthday, said Austin
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: in cold even tones. He must catch the mail to night,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: Viviette echoed, to night, and in all probability he will
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: help a Vancouver in a day or two. It won't
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: be worth his while to come back here. She laid
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: a hand on her heart, which fluttered painfully. Then then
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: we'll never see him again. Probably not. I didn't think
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: it would be so sudden, she said a little wildly.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: Neither did I.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: But it's for the best. But supposing he wants some
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: time to look about him. I'll see to everything, said Austin. Anyhow,
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: I must be the first to tell him, said Viviette.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: You will do me a very great favor if you
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: will let me have that privilege, said Austin. I make
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: up a particular point of it. I have some serious
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: business to discuss with him before dinner, and that were
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: with the time for me to break the news. He
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: was no longer the fairy copp Mother's devoted and humble factotum.
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: He spoke with a cold air of authority that chilled
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: the fairy godmotherdom in Vivierte's bosom. Her pretty little scheme
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: dwindled into childishness before the dark incomprehended thing that had happened.
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: She sent it with unusual meekness. But I'm desperately disappointed,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: she said, my dear Viviete, he answered, more kindly, and
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: looking at her with some wistfulness. The pleasures and even
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: the joy of life have to give way to the
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: sober business side of existence. It isn't very gay, I know,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: but we can't alter it. He held out his hand. Instinctively,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: she gave him hers. He raised it to his lips
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: and held the door open.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: For her.
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: She went out, scarcely, knowing that she had been dismissed.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: Ostin closed the door, stood unsteadily for a moment, like
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: a man stricken with great pain, and then, sitting down
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: at his desk again, put his elbows on the table,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: rested his head in his hands, and stared at the
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: white piece of paper. When would Dick come home? He
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: had given orders that Dick should be asked to go
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: to him as soon as he arrived. Would Dick ever
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: come home again? It was quite possible that some misfortune
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: might have happened. Tragedy is apt to engender tragedy. He shuddered,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: hearing in his fancy at the tramp of men, and
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: seeing a shrouded thing they carried across the hall. He
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: bitterly accused himself for not having sought Dick far and
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: wide as soon as he had made his ghastly discovery.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: But he had required time to recover his balance. The
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: horrible suddenness had stunned him. A tempted fratricide is not
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: a common happening in gentle families. He had to accustom
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: himself to the atmosphere of the abnormal, so as to
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: state the psychological case in its numberless ramifications. This he
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: had done. His head was clear, his un alterable decision made.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: Now the minutes dragged with leaden feet until Dick should come.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: Viviette was the first to see him. She had dressed
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: her early for dinner, and as the late June afternoon
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: had turned out fine, was taking her problem out to
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: air on the terrace when she came upon him, standing
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: at the door of his armory. His hair was wet
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: and matted, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes dripping, and he
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: himself splashed with mud from head to foot. He trembled
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: all over, shaken by a great terror. The case of
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: pistols had gone. Who had taken them? Had the leged
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: pistol been discovered? As Vivitt appeared, robed in deep blue
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: schiffle that seemed torn from the deep blue evening sky,
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: and looking in the man's maddened eyes, magically beautiful, he
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: held out imploring hands. Come in for a moment, for
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: the love of God, Come in for a moment. He
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: stepped back invitingly. She hesitated for a second on the threshold,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: and then followed him down the dim gallery, past the
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: screen where all the swords and helmets lay scattered on
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: the table. He looked at her haggardly, and she met
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: his gaze with kind eyes in which there was no mockery. No,
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: nothing had happened, he told himself, Otherwise she would shrink
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: from him as from something accursed. My God, if you
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: knew how I love you, he said, hoarsely, My God,
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: if you only knew. His suffering racked her heart, all
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: her pity melted over him. She laid her caressing fingers
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: on his arm. Oh, my poor dick, she said. The touch,
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: the choke in her voice, brought about Vivierte's damnfall. Perhaps
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: she meant it to do so. Who can tell what
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: woman ever knows? In a flash, his arms were around her,
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: and his kisses, a wild primitive man's kisses, were on
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. Her face was crushed
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: against the rough, wet tweed of his coat, and its odor,
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: raw and coarse, was in her nostrils. She drooped, intoxicated,
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: gasping for breath in his unheeding giant's grip. But she
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: made no effort to escape. As he held her. A thrill,
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: agonizing and delicious swept through her and she raised her
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: lips involuntarily to his and closed her eyes. At last
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: he released her, mangled, touzzled her very self, a draggled
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: piece of schiffle, like the night blue frock, soiled with
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: wet and mud. Forgive me, he said, I had no right,
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: least of all. Now God knows what is to become
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: of me. But whatever happens, you know that I love you.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: She held her hands clasped before her face. She could
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: not look at him. Yes, I know, she murmured. In
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: another moment, he had gone, leaving Viviette, who had entered
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: the room a gal transformed into a woman with the
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: first shimmer of passion in her veins. Dick, vaguely conscious
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: of damp and dirt, went up to his bedroom. The
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: sight of his evening things spread out on the bed
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: reminded him that it was nearly dinner time. Mechanically, he
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: washed and dressed as he was buckling on his ready
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: made white tie. His clumsy fingers, in spite of many
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: lessons from Viviette, had never learned the trick of tying
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: a bow. A maid brought him a message, mister Austin's compliments.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: Would he see mister Austin for a few moments. In
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: mister Austin's room, the words were like the dreaded tap
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: on the shoulder of the hunted criminal. I'll come at once,
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: he said. He found Austin city on the chair by
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: his desk, resting his chin on his elbow. He did
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: not stir as Dick entered. You want to speak to me, yes,
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: said Austin. Will you sit down? I'll stand, said Dick impatiently.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: What have you to say to me? I believe you've
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: expressed your desire to leave England and earn your living
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: in a new country.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: Is that so?
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: The brother's eyes met. Dick saw that the lady Pistol
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: had been discovered and read no love, no pity, only condemnation.
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: In the hard gaze. Hostin was pronouncing sentence. Yes, he replied, sullenly.
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: I happen, said Austin, to know of an excellent opportunity.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: Lord Overton, whom you've met, wants a man to take
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: charge of his timber forests in Vancouver. The salary is
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: seven hundred pounds a year. I ward to Lord Overton,
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: asking for the appointment on your behalf. This is his answer,
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: Dick took the telegram and read it with muddled head.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: Hostin had lost no time. You see it fits inaborably.
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: You can start by the night mail. Your sunden departure
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: needs no other explanation to the household than this telegram.
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: I hope you understand. I understand, said Dick bitterly. A
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: sudden memory of words that Vivitt had used the day
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: before occurred to him. I understand. This is to get
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: me out of the way, Davy. Put your eye in
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: the forefront of the battle. Vancouver is the forefront. Don't
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: you think we had better avoid all unprofitable discussion? Hostin
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: rose and confronted him. I expect you to accept this
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: offer and my conditions, and if I refuse, asked Dick,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: with rising anger, what dare you threaten me with? Ostin
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: raised a deprecatory hand. Do you suppose I go to
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: threaten you? I simply expect you not to refuse. Your
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: conscience must tell you that I have the right to
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: do so, doesn't it. Dick glowed sullenly at the wall
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: and tugged his great mustache. You force me to touch
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: on things I should have liked to keep hidden, said Austin.
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: Very well.
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: He took a scrap of crumpled paper from the desk.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: Do you recognize this? It formed the wad of the
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: pistol that was in your hand. Dick started back a pace.
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: You're wrong, he gasped it. It's your pistol that was loaded.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: No yours, the cap missed far Or. I should have
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: been a dead man, murdered by my brother. Stop, cried Dick.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: Not murdered, No, no, not murdered. It was in fair fight.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: I gave you the choice. When I thought I had
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: the unloaded one, I called on you to far. Why
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: the devil didn't you? I wanted you to far. I
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: was mad for you to far. I wanted to be
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: killed there and then no one could say I shirked it.
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: I gave you your chance. That's nothing to do with it,
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: said Austin sternly. When you fired, you meant murder. Your
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: face meant killing. And supposing I had fired and killed you,
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: good God, I would sooner you had killed me than
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: burden my soul with your death. It would have been
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: less cowardly, Yes, cowardly. The conditions were not even to me.
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: It was trivial foolingked to you. Deadly, earnest, Are you
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: not mad enough to see that I have the right
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: to exact some penalty. Dick remained silent for a few moments,
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: while the paws of light and darkness struggled together in
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: his soul. At last, he said, in a low voice,
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: hanging his head, I accept your terms.
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 2: You leave by the night mail for witherby very well.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: There's another point, said Austin, the most important point of all.
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: You will not speak alone to Viviete before you start.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: Dick turned with an angry flash. What you will not
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: speak to Viviete alone when you are gone, for there
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: is no need for you to come back here before
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: you sail. You will not write to her. You will
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: go absolutely and utterly out of her life. Dick broke
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: into harsh, furious laughter. Ha ha, and leave her to you.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: I might have known that the lawyer would have had
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: me in the trap, but this time you've overreached yourself.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: I'll never give her up, do you hear me?
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 2: Never? Never? Never.
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: I would go through the horror of to day a
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: thousand times, day by day until I die, rather than
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: give her up to you. You shall not take this
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: last thing from me, This hope of winning her, as
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: you have taken everything else. You have supplanted me since
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: first you learned to speak, It has been Esaul and Jacob,
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: or Cain and Abel, said Austin, you can taught me
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: if you like, cried Dick, goaded to fury, and the
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: whole bitterness of a lifetime surging up in passionate speech.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: I've got past feeding it. Your life has been one
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: continual taunt of me. You've thought me a dull, good
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: natured bore, delighted to have a word thrown at him
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: now and again by the elegant gentleman, and rather honored
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: than otherwise to be ridden over, roughshod or kicked into
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: the mub when it pleased the elegant gentleman to buy. No,
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: listen to me, he thundered, as Ostin was about to protest.
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: By God, you shall listen this time. You've made me
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: your butt, your fool, your doer of trivial offices. I've
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: wondered sometimes while you haven't addressed me as my good
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: fellow and asked me to touch my cap to you.
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: I've borne it all these years without complaining. But you
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: know what it is to eat your heart out and
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: remain silent. I've borne it for my mother's sake, in
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: spite of her dislike of me, and for your sake,
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: because I loved you. Yes, if ever one man has
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: loved another, I've loved you. But you took no heed.
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: What was my affection worth? I was only the stupid,
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: dull bore. But I suffered it all till you came
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: between me and her. I spent the whole passion of
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: my life upon her. She was the only thing left
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: in the world for which I felt fiercely. I hungered
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: for her, thirstive for her. My brain throbbed at the
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: thought of her. The blood rushed through my veins the
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: sight of her. And you came between us. And if
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: I've damned my soul, by God, the damnation is your doing.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: Do you think while I live that I'll give her
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: up to you? I'll get my soul's worth anyhow. He
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: smote his palm with his clenched fists and strode about
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: the little room, ostin saf for a while, dumb with
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: astonishment and dismay. His cherished, life long conception of dear
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: old Dick lay shattered. A new Dick appeared to him,
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: a personality stronger, deeper than he could have imagined. A
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: new respect for him, also, a new pity that was
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: generous and not contemptuous, crept into his heart. Listen, Dick said,
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: he using the familiar name for the first time. Do
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: I understand that you accuse me of sending you out
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: to Vancouver and hasting your departure so as to gain
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: my own ends with vivierte Yes returned Dick. I do
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: you've laid this trap for me? Have you ever heard
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: been lied to you? No?
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: Said Dick.
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: Then I tell you, as mount to man, that until
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: this afternoon I had no suspicion that your feelings towards
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: Viviete were deeper than those of an elder brother. Dick
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: laughed bitterly. You couldn't conceive a trot like me falling
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: in love. Well, that's beside the question, said Austin. I
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: did not behave dishonorably towards you. I came down, I
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: fell in love with Viviete. How could I help it?
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: How could I help loving her? How could I help
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: telling her so? But she is young and innocent, and
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: her heart is her own. Yet tell me, mount to man,
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: dare you say that you have won it, or that
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: I have won it. What's the good of talking, said Dick,
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: relapsing into his sullen mood. If I go, she is yours,
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: but I won't go. Austin rose again and laid his
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: hand on his brother's arm. Dick, if I give her up,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: will you obey my conditions? You give her up voluntarily?
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: Why should you? The damnable thing was done this afternoon,
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: said Austin. I see I have my share in it,
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: and I as well as you have to make reparation.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: Man alive.
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: You are my brother, he cried, with an outburst of feeling,
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: the nearest sea in the world to me. Do you
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: think I could rest happy with the knowledge that a
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: murderous devil is always in your heart and that it's
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: in my part to exercise it. Do you think the
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: cost matters? Come? Shall we make this bargain?
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 2: Yes or no?
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: It's easy for you to promise, said Dick. But when
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: I am gone, how can you resist? Hostin hesitated for
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: a moment, biting his lips. Then, with the air of
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: a man who makes an inevocable step in life, he
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: crossed the room and rang the bell. Ask missus Halriot
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: if she will have the kindness to come here for
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: a minute, he said to the servant. Dick regarded him wonderingly.
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: What is missus Holroyd to do with our affairs? You'll see,
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: said Austin, and there was silence between them till Catherine came.
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: She looked from one joyless face to the other, and
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: sat without a word, on the chair that Austin placed
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: for her. Her woman's intuition divined a sequel to the
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: afternoon's drama, some of it she had already learned for
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: going earlier into Vivitte's room. She had found her white
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: and shaken, still disordered in hair and dress as Dick
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: had left her, and Viviette had sobbed on her bosom
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: and told her with some incoherence that the monkey had
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: at last hit the lad out Shewl in the wrong place,
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: and that it was all over with the monkey. So
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: before Austin spoke, she half divined why he had summoned her.
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: Her heart throbbed painfully. Dick and I said, Austin, have
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: been talking of serious matters and we need your help.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: She smiled, wlmly, I'll do whatever I can, Austin, you said,
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: this afternoon that you would do anything I asked you.
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: Do you remember, yes? I said so, and I meant it.
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: You said it in reply to my question whethery you
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: would accept me if I asked you to marry me.
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: Dick started from the sullen stupor into which he had fallen,
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: and listened with perplexed interest. You are not quite right
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: in your tenses, Austin, she remarked, you said, would I
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: have accepted you if you had asked me? I want
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: to change the tense into the present, he replied. She
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: met his glance calmly. You asked me to marry you
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: in spite of what you told me this afternoon. In
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: spite of it, and because of it, he said, drawing
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: up a chair near to her, A great crisis has
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: arisen in our lives that must make you forget other
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: words I spoke this afternoon. Those other words and everything
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: connected with them I blot out of my memory for ever.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: I want you to do me an infinite service. If
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: there had been no deep affection between us, I should
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: not dare to ask you. I want you to be
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: my wife, to take me into your keeping, to trust
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: me as an upright man, to devote my life to
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: your happiness. I swear I'll never give you a moment's
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: cause for regret. She plucked for a while at her gown.
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: It was a strange wooing, but in her street way
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: she had given him her woman's aftermath of love. It
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: was a gentle menow gift, far removed from the summer
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: blaze of passion, and it had suffered little harm from
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: the sadness of the day. She saw that he was
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: in great stress. She knew him to be a loyal gentleman.
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: Is this the result of that scene in the armory?
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: She asked quietly. Yes, said as I was right. Then
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: it was a matter of life and death, it was
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: said he, so is this She looked again from one
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: face to the other, rose, hesitated for a moment, and
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: then held out her hand. I am willing to trust you, Austin,
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: she said. He touched her hand with his lips and
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: said gravely, I will not fail your trust. As soon
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: as he had gone, he went to the chair where
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: Dick sat in gloomy remorse, and laid a hand on
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: his shoulder. Well, said he, I agree, Dick groaned, without
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: looking up. I am no alternative. I appreciate your generosity.
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: Then Austin spoke of the appointment of Vancouver. He explained
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: how the idea had occurred to him, how Vivier to
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: come late the night before to tell him of what
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: he had never before suspected Dick's desire to go abroad,
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: how they conspired to give him a berth to surprise,
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: how they driven over to wither Bit as send the
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: telegram to Lord Everton. And as he spoke, Dick looked
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: at him with a new ghastliness on his face. This
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: afternoon in the dining room, when you said that Viviete
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: had told you everything about your wish to go to
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: the colonies, what else, and what I overheard in the
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: armory about a telegram to tell him me putting me
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: out of my misery. Only whether we should tell you
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: to night or to morrow about the appointment Dick, Dick,
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: said Austin, deeply moved by the great fellow's collapse. If
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: I have wronged you all these years, it was through
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: want of insight, not want of affection. If I have
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: taunted you, as you say, it was merely a life
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: long habit of jesting which you never seemed to resent.
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: I was unconscious of hurting you for my blindness and carelessness.
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: I beg your forgiveness with regard to Viviette. I ought
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: have seen, but I didn't. I don't say you had
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: no cause for jealousy. But as God hears me, all
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: the little conspiracy to day was lovingly meant all to
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: give you pleasure.
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 2: I swear it.
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: Dick rose and stumbled about among the furniture. The setting
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: sun fell just below the top of the casement window,
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: and its direct rays flooded the little room and showed
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: Dick in a strange, unearthly light. I wronged you, he said, bitterly.
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: Even in my passions, I'm a dull fool. I thought
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: you a damned cad. And I got more and more furious,
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: and I drank. I was drunk all this afternoon. A
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: madness came. And when I saw you kiss her, Yes,
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: I saw you. I was peeping from behind the screen,
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: things went red before my eyes. And it was then
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: that I loaded the pistol to shoot you on the spot.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: God forgive me, May God have mercy upon me. He
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: leant his arms on the sill and buried his face.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: I can't ask your forgiveness he went on. After a moment,
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: it would be a mockery, he laughed mirthlessly. How can
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: I say, I'm sorry? I meant to murder you. Please
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: don't think anything about it. He turned with a fierce gesture.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: Oh you must take it all, as said mad Now
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: have you finished with me? I can't stand it much longer.
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: I agree to all your terms. I'll drive over to
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: wither beIN now and wait for the train, and you'll
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: be free of me. He turned again and moodily looked
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: out of the window in the full flood of the sunset.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: We must play the game, Dick said, ostin gently, and
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: go through the horrible farce of dinner for mother's sake.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: Dick heard him vaguely below on the terrace. Viviette was walking,
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: and she filled his universe. She changed the bedraggled frock
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: for the green one she had worn the night before. Presently,
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: she raised her eyes and saw him leaning out of
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: the window. Have they told him that dinner is not
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: till a quarter past eight? She cried, looking deliciously upwards
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: with a dainty hand to her cheek. Lord Manson sent
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: a message to Mother that he was unexpectedly detained, a
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: mother has put back dinner. Isn't it impudence?
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: But Dick was.
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: Far too crushed with misery to respond. He nodded gejectedly.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: She remained staring up at him for a while and
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: then ran into the house. Dick listlessly mentioned the postpement
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: of dinner. I'm sorry, I asked the little brute, but
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: I couldn't avoid it. What does it matter, said Austin.
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: He was silent for a moment. Then he came close
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: to Dick. Dick said, he that has end this awful scene,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: as friends and brothers, as Heaven hears me, There's no
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: bitterness in my heart, only deep sorrow and love. Dick
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: shake hands. Dick took his hand and broke down utterly,
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: and said such things of himself as other men do
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: not like to hear. Presently, there was a light rap
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: of knuckles at the door. Austin opened it and beheld Viviet.
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: I won't disturb you, she said, I only want to
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: give this note to Dick. I will hand it to him,
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: said Austin. She thanked him and departed. He closed the
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: door and gave Dick the note. Dick opened it, read
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: and with a great cry of viviad rushed to the door.
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: Austin interposed, grasping him by the wrist. What are you doing,
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to her, shouted Dick, wildly wrenching himself free.
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 2: Read this.
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: He held up the note before Austin's eyes with shaking fingers.
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: Austin read, I can't bear to see the misery on
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: your face when I can make you happy. I love
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: you dear better than anything on earth. I know it now,
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: and I'll go out with you to Vancouver.
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 2: She loves me.
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: She will marry me if she'll go out to Vancouver,
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: cried Dick. It changes everything. I must go to her.
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: You shall not go, said Austin. Shall not? Who darest
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: prevent me?
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 2: I do?
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: I hold you to your word? But man alive, she
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: loves me. Don't you see? The bargain is dissolved. This
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: is none of my seeking. She comes out of her
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: own free will. I am going to her. Austin put
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: both his hands affectionately on the big man's shoulders and
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: forced him into a chair. Listen to me for just
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: one minute, Dick, Dick, you dare not marry Don't try
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: me to tell you the reason. Can't you see if yourself.
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: Why I have imposed this condition on you all along?
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: I know no reason, said Dick. She loves me and
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: that is enough. The grain is deepened over Austin's face
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: and the pain in his eyes. I must speak then,
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: in plain terms, that horrible murder impulses the reason to day,
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: in a fit of French genousy, you would have killed me,
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: your brother. Is there any guarantee that in another fit
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: of friendly genousy you might not? A shudder ran through
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: Dick's great frame. He streched out his hand. For God's sake,
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: don't I must until you see this ghastly business in
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: its true aspect. Look at the lighter side of Vivierte's character.
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: She's gay, fond of admiration, childishly fond of teasing, a
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: bright creature of bewildering moods. Would you be safe in
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: your hands? Might you not one day again see things
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: red before your eyes and again go mad?
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 2: Don't say any more.
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: Dick said, in a choking voice. Ah, I can't stand it.
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: Heaven knows I didn't want to say as much. Dick
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: shuddered again. Yes, you are right. I'm a man with
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: a curse. I can't marry her. I darned.
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 2: And of Chuck.
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: Chapter six of viviet by William John Locke. This LibriVox
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain recording by Simon Evers.
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: Chapter six, Viviete takes the risk presently. Dick raised the
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: face of Cain when he told the law that his
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: punishment was greater than he could bear. Tears leaped to
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: Austin's eyes, but he turned his head away lest Dick
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: should see them. He would have given years of his
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: life to spare Dick everything he had in the world,
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: save his deep convictions of right and wrong. He was
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: responsible for Viviete that risk of horror. He could not
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: let her run. He had hoped, with a great agony
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: of hope, that Dick would have seen it for himself
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: to formulate it had been torture, but he could not weaken.
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: The barrier between Dick and Viviete was not of his making.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: It was composed of the grim psychological laws that govern
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: the abnormal. To have disregarded it would have been a
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: crime from which his soul shrank. All the despair in
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: Dick's face, though it wrung his heart, could not move him.
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: It was terrible to be chosen in this way to
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: be the arbiter of destiny. But there was the degree
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: written in letters of blood and flame, and Dick had
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: bowed to it. What's to become of her? He groaned,
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: This will be her home, as it always has been,
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: said Austin, I don't mean that. But between us we
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: shall break her heart. She has given it to me,
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: just in time for me to do it. My luck,
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: Austin tried to comfort him. A girl's heart was not
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: easily broken. Her pride would suffer. Most pain was inevitable.
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: But time healed many wounds. In this uncertain world, nothing
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: was ever so good as we hoped, and nothing ever
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 1: so bad as we feared. Dick paid little heed to
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: the plattaeudes. She must be told not what happened this afternoon,
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: cried Austin quickly. That we beary forever from all human knowledge. Yes,
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: said Dick, staring in front of him and speaking in
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: a dull, even voice. We must hide that. It's not
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: a pretty thing to spread before a girl's eyes. It
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: would be always before my own until I die. But
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: she must be told that I can't marry her. I
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: can't ride away and leave her in doubt. And wonder
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: for ever and ever. Let us face this horrible night
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: as best we can, said Austin, avoid seeing her alone.
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: You'll be with mother or packing most of the evening.
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: Slip away to witherby an hour or so before your time,
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: when you've gone unarranged matters.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: Leave it to me.
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: He made one of his old self confident gestures. But
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: now Dick felt no resentment, his spirit in its deeper
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: basement sore in Austin, the better, wiser, stronger man. At
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: a quarter past eight, they went slowly downstairs to what
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: promised to be a nightmare kind of meal. There would
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: be four persons, vivierte Catherine and themselves in a state
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: of suppressed eruption, and two missus Ware and the unspeakable Banstead,
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: complacently unaware of volcanic forces around them, who might, by
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: any chance word bring about disaster. There was danger too,
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: and the greatest from Viviete, ignorant of destiny. Oustin dreaded
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: the ordeal, But despair and remorse had been numbed Dick's faculties.
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: He had passed the stage at which men fear. With
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: his hand on the knob of the drawing room door,
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: Ostin paused and.
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 2: Looked at him.
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: Pull yourself together, ma'am, play your part, for God's sake.
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: Try to look cheerful, Dick tried. Austin shivered, for God's sake,
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: don't he said. They entered the drawing room, expecting to
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: find to the three ladies and possibly Lord Banstead for dinner.
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 1: To Austin's discomfiture, Viviete was alone in the room. She rose,
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: made a step or two to meet them, then stopped.
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: What a pair of faces on the thinking with the
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: eve of Dick's execution, and you were the hangman measuring
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: him for the loose Dick said, Austin is leaving us
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: to night, possibly for many years. I don't see that
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: he is so very greatly to be pitied, said Viviete,
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: trying in vain to meet Dick's eyes. She drew him
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: a pace or two her side. Did you read my
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: note or did you tear it up like the other one?
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 2: I read it?
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: He said, looking a scouts at the floor. Then why
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: are you so werbiguane? He replied in a helpless way
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: that he was not. Woebegone. Viviete was puzzled, hurt, somewhat humiliated.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: She made woman's great surrender, which is usually followed by
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: a flourish of trumpets, very gratified to hear. In fact,
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: to most women, the surrender is worth the flourish. But
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: the recognition of this surrender appeared to find its celebration
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: in a funeral march with muffled drums. A condemned man
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: being fitted for the noose, as you suggested, A mute
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: conscientiously mourning at his own funeral. A man who had
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: lost a stately demean in paradise had been ironically compensated
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: by the gift of a bit of foreshore of the sticks,
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: could not have worn a less joyous expression than he
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: on whom she had conferred the boon of his heart's desire.
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: Not any werbegone, she said, with spirit. But you're utterly miserable.
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: I think I have a right to know the reason.
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: Tell me what is it? She tapped a small, impatient foot.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: We haven't told my mother yet, Aston explained, and Dick
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: is rather nervous as to the way in which she
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: will take the news. Yes, said Dick, with lame huskiness.
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: It's on mother's account, Viviet laughed, somewhat scornfully. I am
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: not a child, my dear, Austin, No man as a
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: face like that on account of his mother, least of
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: all when he meets the woman who had promised to
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: be his wife. She flashed a challenging glance at Austin,
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: but not a muscle of his gray face responded her
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: natural expectations were baffled. There was no start of amazement,
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: no fierce movement of anger, no indignant look of reproach.
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: She was thrown back on herself. She said, I don't
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: think you quite understand. Dick had two aims in life,
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: one to obtain a colonial appointment, the other so he'd
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: admit to suppose to marry me. He has the appointment,
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: and I have promised to marry him. I know, said Austin.
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: But you must make allances. If that's all you can say,
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: on behalf of your client, retorted Vivierte, I rather wonder
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: at your success as a barrister. Don't you think, my dear,
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: said Austin gently, that we are treading all delicate ground.
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: Delicate ground, she scoffed, we seem to be treading on
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: a volcano all the afternoon. I'm tired of it, She
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: faced the two men with uplifted head. I want an
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: explanation of what Austin said of Dick's attitude. What has
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: he got to be miserable about? Tell me, but I'm
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: not miserable, my dear, Viviete, said poor Dick, vainly, forcing
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: a smile. I'm really quite happy. A woman's intuition rejected
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: the protest with contumly all the afternoon. He'd been mad
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: with jerousey of Austin. An hour ago. He had whirled
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: her out of her senses in savage passion, but a
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: few minutes before she had given him all a woman
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: has to give. Now he met her with hangdog visage,
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: apologies from Austin, and milk and water as a veration
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: of a lover's rapture. The most closely folded rosebud miss
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: of earlier Victorian times could not have faced the situation
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: without showing something of the eve that lurked in the
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: heart of the petals. So much the less Creviviete, child
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: of a freer franca Day, hight her just indignation under
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: the rose leaves of maidenly modesty. Happy, she echoed, I've
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: known you. Since I was a child of three, I
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: know the meaning of every light and every shadow that
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: passes over your face except this shadow. Now what does
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 1: it mean? She asked the question imperiously. No longer the
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: elfing changeling, the fairy of bewildering moods of Austin's imagination.
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: No longer the laughing coquette of Catherine's less picturesque fancy,
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: but a modern young woman of character, considerably angered and
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: very much in earnest. Austin bit his lip in perplexity.
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: Dick looked round like a hunted animal seeking a bolting hole.
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: Dick is anxious, said Austin, at length, seeing that some
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: explanation must be given that there should be no engagement
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: between you before he goes out to Vancouver. Indeed, said Viviette, may,
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: as this concerns Dick and myself, perhaps you will leave
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: us alone for a moment so that Dick may tell me. No. No,
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: Dick muttered hurriedly, and don't leave us, Austin. We can't
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: talk of such a thing now again, She tapped her
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: foot impatiently. Yes, now I am going to hear the reason. Now,
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, the brothers exchanged glances. Dick turned to
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: the window and stared at the mellow evening sky. Austin
• 2:30:28
  Speaker 1: again was spokesman. Dick finds he is made a terrible
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 1: and cruel mistake, one that concerns you intimately. Whatever Dick
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: may have done with regard to me, replied Vivierte, I
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: forgave him for it beforehand. When once I give a thing,
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: I don't take it back. I have given him my
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: love and my promise, My dear, said Austin, gravely and kindly.
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: Here are two men who have loved you all your life.
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: Don't think hardly of us. You must be braved and
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: bear a great shock. Dick, can't marry you? She looked
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: at him incredulously. Can't marry me?
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 2: Why not?
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: It would be better not to ask. She moved swiftly
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 1: to Dick and with her light touch swung him round
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: to face the room. I don't understand. Is it because
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: you're going out into the wilds. That doesn't matter. I
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: told you I would go to Vancouver with you. I
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: want to go. My happiness is with you, Dick groaned.
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: Don't make it harder for me. What are you keeping
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: from me? She asked? Is it anything? You don't think
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: fit for my ears? If so is speak, I'm no
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: longer a child. Is there another woman in the case?
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: She met Austin's eyes full. He said, no, thank god,
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: nothing of that sort, And as her eyes did not waver,
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 1: he made the bold stroke. He finds that he doesn't
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: love you as much as he thought. There's the whole
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: tragedy in a few words. She reeled back, as if
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 1: struck Dick doesn't love me. Then the announcement seemed so
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: grotesque in its improbability that she began to laugh and
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: trifled hysterically. He he is this true? It's quite true,
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: said poor Dick. You see, my dear, said Austin. What
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: it costs him, what it cost us both to tell
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: you this. But I don't understand. I don't understand, she
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: cried with sudden piteousness.
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 2: What did you be? Then?
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: A little while ago in the armory, Austin, who did
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: not see the illusion, had to allow Dick to speak
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: for himself. I was drunk, said Dick, desperately. I've been
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: drinking heavily of Leyton and not accountable for my actions.
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have done.
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: What I did, And so you see, continued Ostin with
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: some eagerness. When he became confronted with the great change
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: in his life, Vancouver things soberly. He found that his
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: feelings towards you were not of the order that would
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: warrant his making you his wife. Before Viviette could reply,
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: the door opened and missus Ware and Catherine entered the room.
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: Missus Ware, ignorant of tension, went smilingly to Austin, and,
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: drawing down his shapely head with both hands, kissed him.
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: My dear, dear boy, I'm so glad, so truly glad
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 1: Catherine has just told me, told you what mother asked
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: Viviette quickly, with a new sharpness in her voice. Missus
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: Ware turned a beaming face. Can't you guess, darling, oh Astin,
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 1: there's no living woman whom I would sooner call my daughter.
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 2: You've may be so happy.
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: The fasciur tears came, and she sat down and dried
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: them on her little wisp of handkerchief. I thought it
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: for the best to tell your mother, Austin, said Catherine,
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: somewhat apologetically. We were speaking of you, and I couldn't
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: keep it back. Viviete, white lipped and dazed, looked at Austin,
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: Catherine and Dick in turns. She said, in the high
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: pitched voice to Austin, have you asked Catherine to marry you? Yes,
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: he replied, not quite so confidently, and avoiding her glance.
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: And she has done me the honor of accepting me.
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: Catherine held out her conciliatory hand to Viviette. Won't you
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: congratulate me?
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 2: Dear?
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: And Austin too, said missus ware. But Viviette lost control
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: of herself. I'll congratulate nobody, she cried, shrilly. She burned
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: with a sense of intolerable outrage. Only a few hours before,
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 1: she had been befooled into believing herself to be the
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: mistress of the destinies of two men. Both had offered
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: her their love, both had kissed her. Her memory lashed
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: her into fury. Now one of them are vowed that
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: she had been merely the object of a drunken passion,
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: and the other came before the defiant husband of the
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: woman who called herself her dearest friend. Catherine, in deep distress,
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: laid her hand on the girl's arm. Why not, dear,
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: I thought that you and Dick, In fact, I understood
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: Vivier freed herself from Catherine's touch. Oh no, you didn't.
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: You didn't understand anything, you didn't try to. You were
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: all lying, the three of you. You've all lied and
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: lied and lied to me. I tell you to your faces,
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: you've lied to me. She swung passionately to each in turn.
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: Austin could never be anything to me but a friend.
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: Halten have you said that to me? Ah, Saint Latouche?
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: And you to Austin? How dared you insult me this morning?
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: And you, how have you dared to insult me all
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: the time? You've lied, the whole lot of you, and
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: I hate you all. Missus Ware had risen, scared and trembling.
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: What does the girl mean? I've never heard such unladylike
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: words in a drawing room in my life. Dick blundered in,
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 1: Eat all my fault, mother, I'm not the slightest doubt
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: of that, returned the old lady with asperity. But what
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: Austin and Catherine have to do with it? I can't imagine.
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 1: The servant opened the door, Lord Bansteid. He entered a cold,
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 1: strange silence. Everybody had forgotten him. He must have attributed
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: the ungenial atmosphere to his own lateness. It was half
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: past eight, for he made penitent apology to missus Ware.
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: Austin greeted him coldly. Dick nodded absently from the other
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: side of the room. Viviette, with a sweeping glance of
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: defiance at the assembled family, helped herself, very erect, and
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: with hard eyes and quivering lips, came straight to the
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: young fellow, Lord Banstead. She said, you asked me four
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: times to marry you. Did you mean it? Or were
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: you lying too? Banstead's padid cheeks flunged. He was ever
• 2:37:01
  Speaker 1: calm with confusion. Of course, I mean meant to ask
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: you again to day, ask you now, then I will
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: marry you. Dick strode forth, and, catching her by the wrist,
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: swung her away from Panstead. His face aflame with sudden passion. No,
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: my god, you shan't. Pansid retreated a few paces, scared
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: out of his life. This is where sought Austin's protecting arm.
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: What does this all mean? I don't understand it. Austin
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: led her to the door. I'll see nothing unpleasant happened, Dear,
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: you'd better go and tell them to keep back dinner.
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: Yet a few minutes, his voice and authority soothed her,
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: and she left the room, casting a terrified look at
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: Dick standing threateningly over Lord Banstead, who muttered something about
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: Viviene being free to do as she liked. She can
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: do what she likes. But my god, she shan't marry you.
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: I'm of age, declared Vivine fiercely. I marry whom I choose.
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: Of course she can, said Bansin, Are you taking leave
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 1: of your senses? How dare you ask a pure girl
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: to marry you? Cried Dick furiously. You have come here
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: straight from Vansteff found some spirit. Shut up where he interrupted,
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: play the game. You've no right to say that I
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: have the right.
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 2: Cried Dick.
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: Hush, said Austin, interposing there's no need to prolong this
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: painful discussion to morrow, as Viviot's guardian. To morrow, Dick shouted,
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: where shall I be to morrow? Away from here? Unable
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: to defend her, unable to say a word. If you
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: said a thousand words, said Viviete, they wouldn't make an
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: atom of difference. Lord Bannstead has asked me to marry him.
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: I have accepted him openly. What dare you say to it? Yes,
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: said Bansin. She's made no bones about it. I've asked
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: her five times now she accepts me. What have you
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: to say to it? I say, she shan't marry you,
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: said Dick, glaring at the others. Steady Dick said, he
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: said Austin warningly. But Dick shook his warning angrily aside,
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 1: and Austin saw that once again that day, Dick was desperate.
• 2:39:18
  Speaker 2: Not what I live? Shall she marry you? Don't? I
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 2: know your infernal, beastly life?
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: Now? Look here, said Bounstead at Bay. What the deuce
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: have you got to do with my affairs?
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 2: Everything?
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: Do you think she loves you, cares for you, honors you,
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: respects you. Vivier had faced him with blazing eyes. I do,
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: she said, defiantly. It's a lie, cried Dick. It's you
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: that are lying now, heaven and earth. I've suffered enough
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: to day. I thought I've been through hell, But it's
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: nothing to this. She loves me, do you hear me? Me? Me, me,
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: and I can't marry her. I don't care a damn
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: who knows the reason?
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 2: Stop? Man, said Austin. Let me be.
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: She shall know the truth. Every one shall know the truth.
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: At any rate. It will save her from this. I
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: will do it quietly later, Dick, let me be, I
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: tell you, said Dick, with great, clumsy, passionate gesture. Let's
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: have no more lies. He turned to Vivierte. You wrote
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: me a letter. You said you loved me, would marry me,
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: come out to Vancouver. The words made me drunk with happiness.
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 1: At first you saw me. I refused your love and
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: your offer. I said I didn't love you. I lied,
• 2:40:37
  Speaker 1: I said I couldn't marry you. It was the truth.
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: I can't. I can't but love you. Oh my god,
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: my god. There were flames of hell in my heart.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: But couldn't you see the love shining through? Don't, Dick, don't,
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: cried Catherine. I will, he exclaimed wildly. I'll tell her
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: why I can't marry her. Woman, I tried to murder
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: austin this afternoon. Catherine closed her eyes. She had guessed it,
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: but Viviette, with parted lips and white cheeks, groped her
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 1: way backwards to a chair, without shifting her terror stricken
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: gaze from Dick, and sitting she gripped the arms of
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: the chair. There was a moment of tense silence. Vanstead
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: at last relieved his feelings with the gasping well, I've
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: damned Dick continued. It was jealousy, mad jealousy. In this afternoon.
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 1: In the armory, the mock jewel, one of the pistols,
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: was loaded. I loaded it first in order to kill
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: him out of hand. Then I thought of the duel.
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: He would have his chance. Either he would kill me
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: or I would kill him. Mine happened to be loaded,
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: it missed fire. It's only the infinite mercy of God
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: that I didn't kill him.
• 2:41:57
  Speaker 2: He found it out. He's forgiven me.
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: He's worth fifty millions of me. But my hands are
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: red with his blood. And I can't touch your pure garments.
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: They would stain them bread, and I should see red
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: again before my eyes some day. A man like me
• 2:42:13
  Speaker 1: is not fit to marry any woman. A murderer is
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: beyond the pale. So I said I didn't love her
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: to save her from the knowledge of this horror. And
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: now I am going to the other side of the
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: world to work out my salvation. But she shall know
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: that a man loves her with all his soul. I
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: would go through any torment and renunciation for her sake,
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: and know that she can't go and throw herself away
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: on a man unworthy of her. After what I've told you,
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: will you marry this man? Still looking at him motionless,
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: she whispered, No, I say, exclaimed Bancid, I think astin
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 1: checked further speech. Dick looked haggardly round the room. There,
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 1: now you all know I'm not fit to be under
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: the same roof with you.
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 2: Good Bye.
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: He slouched in his heavy way to the door, but
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: Vivierte sprang from her chair and planted herself in his path.
• 2:43:14
  Speaker 1: No you shan't go. Do you think I have nothing
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: to say? Say what you like, said Dick sadly. Nothing
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: is too black for me. Curse me if you will,
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: She laughed and shook her head. Do you think a
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: woman curses the man who would commit murder for the
• 2:43:32
  Speaker 1: love of her? She cried, with a strange exultation in
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: her voice. If I loved you before, don't you think
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: I love you now a million times more? Dick fell back,
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 1: thrilled with amazement. You love me still, he gasped. You
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: don't shrink, excuse me, interrupted Bannstead. Crossing the room. Does
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: this mean that you chuck me, Miss Hastings. You must
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 1: be released me from my promise, Lord Bannstead, she said gently.
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: I scarcely knew what I was doing. I'm very sorry
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: I've not behave well to you. You've treat me damn badly,
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: said Vanstein, turning on his heel. Good Bye, everybody. Austin,
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: moved by compunction, tried to conciliate the angry youth, but
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: he refused to comfort. He'd be made a fool of
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: and would stand that from nobody. He would not stay
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: for dinner, and would not put his foot inside the
• 2:44:26
  Speaker 1: house again at any rate, said Austin, bidding him good bye.
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: I can rely on you not to breathe a word
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: to any one of what you've heard this evening. Vansidfingered
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: his underfed mustache. I may be pretty rotten, but I'm
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: not that kind of cad, said he, and he went
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: not without a certain dignity. Dick took Vivitte's hand and
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: kissed it tenderly. God bless you, dear. I remember what
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: you've said all my life. I can go away almost happy.
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: You can go away quite happy if you like, said Viviette,
• 2:45:06
  Speaker 1: take me with you to Vancouver. Ostin joined them. It's impossible, dear,
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: said he. I go with him to Vancouver, she said.
• 2:45:18
  Speaker 1: Dick wrung his hands. But I daren't marry you, Viviette.
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: I daren't.
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 2: I daren't.
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: Don't you see that it's impossible, Viviette, said Austin. Why
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: I've explained it to Dick? He has hinted it to you.
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: You're scarcely old enough to understand, my dear, It is
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: the risk you run such men as I can't marry,
• 2:45:42
  Speaker 1: said Dick loyally. You don't understand. Ostin is right. The
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: risk is too great, she.
• 2:45:50
  Speaker 2: Laughed, in superb contempt. The risk.
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: Do you think I'm such a fool as not to understand?
• 2:45:57
  Speaker 1: Do you think, after what I've said that I'm a
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 1: child risk? What is life or love worth without risk?
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: When a woman loves a fierce man, she takes the
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: risk of his fierceness. It's her joy. I'll take the
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: risk and it will be a bond between us. Austin
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: implored her to listen to reason. She swept his arguments aside.
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 1: God forbid, I'll listen to love, she cried, never a
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: man wanted love. It's Dick reason. Come, Dick, let us
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: leave this God and Goddess of reason alone. I've got
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: something to say which only you can hear. She dragged him,
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: in a bewildered state of mind, to the door, which
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: she held open. She was absolute mistress of the situation.
• 2:46:46
  Speaker 1: She motioned to Dick to proceed her, and he obeyed
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: like a man in a dream. On the threshold, she
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: paused and flashed defiance at Austin, who appeared to her
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: splendid gorne but a small, narrow natured man. You can
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: say a thing what you like. You two. You are
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 1: civilized people, and I suppose you love in a civilized way.
• 2:47:07
  Speaker 1: According to reason. I am a primitive woman and Dick's
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 1: a primitive man, and thank god, we understand each other
• 2:47:15
  Speaker 1: and love each other as primitive people do. She slammed
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 1: the door, and in another moment, was caught in Dick's
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: great arms.
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 2: What you want to say that only I can hear?
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 2: He asked.
• 2:47:29
  Speaker 1: After a while this she said, I want you to
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: love me strongly and fiercely for ever and ever, and
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: I'll be a great wife to you. And if I fail,
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 1: if I am ever wanton as I have been to day.
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: For I have been wanton, and all that has happened
• 2:47:46
  Speaker 1: has been my fault. If ever I play fast and
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: loose with your love again, I want you to kill me.
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 2: Promise.
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: She looked at him with glowing eyes. All the big
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: Man's heart melted into a pity. He took her face
• 2:48:02
  Speaker 1: in beth his hands, as tenderly as he would have
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: touched a prize rose bloom. Thank God, you're still a child, dear,
• 2:48:10
  Speaker 1: he said. End of Chapter six, end of Viviete by
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 1: William John Blocke