Latest / The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library / The Shuttle Chapter 37 - Closed Corridors
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- 0:00Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXXVII. CLOSED CORRIDORS of unending walls, from which the
- 0:31Speaker 1: pictured eyes of long-dead men and women stare, as if
- 0:35Speaker 1: seeing things which human eyes behold not, is an eerie
- 0:38Speaker 1: and unwholesome thing. Mount Dunstan slept in a large four-post
- 0:43Speaker 1: bed in a chamber in which he might have died
- 0:45Speaker 1: or been murdered a score of times, without being able
- 0:48Speaker 1: to communicate with the remote servants' quarters below stairs, where
- 0:51Speaker 1: lay the one man and one woman who attended him.
- 0:55Speaker 1: When he came late to his room and prepared for
- 0:57Speaker 1: sleep by the light of two flickering candles, the silence
- 1:00Speaker 1: of the dead in tombs was about him. But it
- 1:03Speaker 1: was only a more profound and insistent thing than the
- 1:06Speaker 1: silence of the day, because it was the silence of
- 1:08Speaker 1: the night, which is a presence. He used to tell himself,
- 1:12Speaker 1: with secret smiles at the fact that at certain times
- 1:15Speaker 1: the fantasy was half believable, that there were things which
- 1:18Speaker 1: walked about softly at night, things which did not want
- 1:21Speaker 1: to be dead. He himself had picked them out from
- 1:24Speaker 1: among the pictures in the gallery, pretty, light, petulant women, adventurous-eyed, full-blooded,
- 1:30Speaker 1: eager men. His theory was that they hated their stone
- 1:33Speaker 1: coffins and fought their way back through the grey mists
- 1:36Speaker 1: to try and talk and make love and be seen
- 1:38Speaker 1: of warm things which were alive. But it was not
- 1:41Speaker 1: to be done, because they had no bodies and no voices,
- 1:45Speaker 1: and when they beat upon closed doors they would not open.
- 1:48Speaker 1: Still they came back, came back, and sometimes there was
- 1:52Speaker 1: a rustle and a sweep through the air in a passage,
- 1:55Speaker 1: or a creak, or a sense of waiting which was
- 1:57Speaker 1: almost a sound.' Perhaps some of them have gone when
- 2:01Speaker 1: they have been as I am,' he had said one
- 2:03Speaker 1: black night, when he had sat in his room staring
- 2:05Speaker 1: at the floor.' If a man was dragged out when
- 2:08Speaker 1: he had not lived a day, he would come back.
- 2:11Speaker 1: I should come back if— God! A man could not be
- 2:14Speaker 1: dragged away like this. And to sit alone and think
- 2:18Speaker 1: of it was an awful and a lonely thing.' a
- 2:21Speaker 1: lonely thing. But loneliness was nothing new, only that in
- 2:25Speaker 1: these months his had strangely intensified itself. This, though he
- 2:30Speaker 1: was not aware of it, was because the soul and
- 2:32Speaker 1: body which were the completing parts of him were within reach,
- 2:35Speaker 1: and without it. When he went down to breakfast he
- 2:39Speaker 1: sat singly at his table, round which twenty people might
- 2:42Speaker 1: have laughed and talked. Between the dining-room and the library
- 2:45Speaker 1: he spent his days when he was not out of doors.
- 2:49Speaker 1: Since he could not afford servants, the many other rooms
- 2:52Speaker 1: must be kept closed. It was a ghastly and melancholy
- 2:55Speaker 1: thing to make, as he must sometimes, a sort of
- 2:58Speaker 1: precautionary visit to the State Apartments. He was the last
- 3:02Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan, and he would never see them opened again
- 3:05Speaker 1: for use, but so long as he lived under the
- 3:07Speaker 1: roof he might by pre-vision check in a measure the
- 3:10Speaker 1: too rapid encroachments of decay. To have a leak stopped
- 3:14Speaker 1: here and nail driven, or a support put there, seemed
- 3:17Speaker 1: decent things to do.' Whom am I doing it for?'
- 3:21Speaker 1: he said to Mr. Penzance.' I am doing it for myself,
- 3:25Speaker 1: because I cannot help it. The place seems to me
- 3:27Speaker 1: like some gorgeous old warrior come to the end of
- 3:30Speaker 1: his days. It has stood the war of things for
- 3:33Speaker 1: century after century, the war of things. It is going
- 3:36Speaker 1: now I am all that is left to it. It
- 3:39Speaker 1: is all I have, so I patch it up when
- 3:41Speaker 1: I can afford it, with a crutch or a splint
- 3:43Speaker 1: and a bandage.' Late in the afternoon of the day
- 3:47Speaker 1: on which Miss Vanderpool rode away from Westways with Lord Westholt,
- 3:50Speaker 1: a stealthy and darkly purple cloud rose, lifting its ominous
- 3:54Speaker 1: bulk against the chrysoprase and pink horizon. It was the
- 3:58Speaker 1: kind of cloud which speaks of but one thing to
- 4:00Speaker 1: those who watch clouds, or even casually consider them. So
- 4:04Speaker 1: Lady Anstruthers felt some surprise when she saw Sir Nigel
- 4:07Speaker 1: mount his horse before the stone steps and ride away,
- 4:10Speaker 1: as it were, into the very heart of the coming storm.'
- 4:14Speaker 1: Nigel will be caught in the rain,' she said to
- 4:16Speaker 1: her sister.' I wonder why he goes out now. It
- 4:20Speaker 1: would be better to wait until to-morrow.' But Sir Nigel
- 4:24Speaker 1: did not think so. He had calculated matters with some nicety.
- 4:28Speaker 1: He was not exactly on such terms with Mount Dunstan
- 4:32Speaker 1: as would make a casual call seem an entirely natural thing,
- 4:35Speaker 1: and he wished to drop in upon him for a
- 4:37Speaker 1: casual call and in an unpremeditated manner.' He meant to
- 4:41Speaker 1: reach the mount about the time the storm broke, under
- 4:43Speaker 1: which circumstance nothing could bear more likely an air of
- 4:47Speaker 1: being unpremeditated than to take refuge in a chance passing.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan was in the library. He had sat smoking
- 4:54Speaker 1: his pipe while he watched the purple cloud roll up
- 4:57Speaker 1: and spread itself, blotting out the chrysoprase and pink and blue,
- 5:01Speaker 1: and when the branches of the trees began to toss
- 5:03Speaker 1: about he had looked on with pleasure as the rush
- 5:06Speaker 1: of big raindrops came down and pelted things. It was
- 5:09Speaker 1: a fine storm. and there were some imposing claps of
- 5:12Speaker 1: thunder and jagged flashes of lightning. As one splendid rattle
- 5:16Speaker 1: shook the air, he was surprised to hear a summons
- 5:19Speaker 1: at the great hall door. Who on earth could be
- 5:21Speaker 1: turning up at this time? His man Reeve announced the
- 5:25Speaker 1: arrival a few moments later, and it was Sir Nigel Anstruthers.
- 5:29Speaker 1: He had, he explained, been riding through the village when
- 5:31Speaker 1: the deluge descended, and it had occurred to him to
- 5:34Speaker 1: turn in at the park gates and ask a temporary shelter.
- 5:38Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan received him with sufficient courtesy, His appearance was
- 5:42Speaker 1: not a thing to rejoice over, but it could be endured.
- 5:45Speaker 1: Whisky and soda and a smoke would serve to pass
- 5:48Speaker 1: the hour if the storm lasted so long. Conversation was
- 5:52Speaker 1: not the easiest thing in the world under the circumstances,
- 5:55Speaker 1: but Sir Nigel led the way steadily after he had
- 5:57Speaker 1: taken his seat and accepted the hospitalities offered. What a
- 6:01Speaker 1: place it was, this! He had been struck for the
- 6:05Speaker 1: hundredth time with the impressiveness of the mass of it,
- 6:07Speaker 1: the sweep of the park and the splendid grouping of
- 6:10Speaker 1: the timber as he had ridden up the avenue. There
- 6:12Speaker 1: was no other place like it in the county. Was
- 6:15Speaker 1: there another like it in England? Not in its case,
- 6:19Speaker 1: I hope, Mount Dunstan said. There were a few seconds
- 6:22Speaker 1: of silence. The rain poured down in splashing sheets and
- 6:26Speaker 1: was swept in rattling gusts against the window-panes. What the
- 6:30Speaker 1: place needs is an heiress, and Struthers observed in the
- 6:33Speaker 1: tone of a practical man. I believe I have heard
- 6:36Speaker 1: that your views of things are such that she should
- 6:38Speaker 1: preferably not be an American. Mount Dunstan did not smile,
- 6:42Speaker 1: though he slightly showed his teeth. When I am driven
- 6:45Speaker 1: to the wall, he answered, I may not be fastidious
- 6:48Speaker 1: as to nationality. Nigel Anstruthers' manner was not a bad one.
- 6:53Speaker 1: He chose that tone of casual openness which, while it
- 6:57Speaker 1: doesn't wholly commit itself, may be regarded as suggestive of
- 7:00Speaker 1: the amiable half-confidence of speeches made as man to man.'
- 7:05Speaker 1: My own opportunity of studying the genus American heiress within
- 7:08Speaker 1: my own gates is a first-class one. I find that
- 7:11Speaker 1: it knows what it wants and that its intention is
- 7:14Speaker 1: to get it.' A short laugh broke for him as
- 7:17Speaker 1: he flicked the ash from his cigar onto the small
- 7:19Speaker 1: bronze receptacle at his elbow.' It is not many years
- 7:23Speaker 1: since it would have been difficult for a girl to
- 7:25Speaker 1: be frank enough to say,' When I marry I shall
- 7:27Speaker 1: ask something in exchange for what I have to give.''
- 7:31Speaker 1: There are not many who have as much to give,'
- 7:34Speaker 1: said Mount Dunstan coolly.' True,' with a slight shrug,' you
- 7:38Speaker 1: are thinking that men are glad enough to take a
- 7:40Speaker 1: girl like that,' even one who has not a shape
- 7:43Speaker 1: like Diana's and eyes like the sea.' Yes, by George,
- 7:48Speaker 1: softly and narrowing his lids, 'she is a handsome creature.''
- 7:52Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan did not attempt to refute the statement,' and
- 7:55Speaker 1: Anne Struthers laughed low again.' It is an asset she
- 7:59Speaker 1: knows the value of quite clearly,' That is the interesting
- 8:03Speaker 1: part of it. She has inherited the far-seeing commercial mind.
- 8:07Speaker 1: She does not object to admitting it. She educated herself
- 8:10Speaker 1: in delightful cold blood that she might be prepared for
- 8:13Speaker 1: the largest prize appearing upon the horizon. She held things
- 8:17Speaker 1: in view when she was a child at school, and
- 8:20Speaker 1: obviously attacked her French, German, and Italian conjugations with a
- 8:23Speaker 1: twelve-year-old eye on the future. Mount Dunstan, leaning back carelessly
- 8:28Speaker 1: in his chair, laughed, as it seemed, with him, internally
- 8:32Speaker 1: he was saying that the man was a liar who
- 8:34Speaker 1: might always be trusted to lie but he knew with
- 8:37Speaker 1: shamed fury that the lies were doing something to his
- 8:40Speaker 1: soul rolling dark vapours over it stinging him dragging away
- 8:44Speaker 1: props and making him feel there had been foolish things
- 8:47Speaker 1: to lean on this can always be done with a
- 8:50Speaker 1: man in love who has slight foundation for hope for
- 8:53Speaker 1: some mysterious and occult reason civilisation has elected to treat
- 8:57Speaker 1: the strange and great passion as if it were an
- 8:59Speaker 1: unholy and indecent thing whose dominion over him, proper social training,
- 9:04Speaker 1: prevents any man from admitting openly. In passing through its
- 9:08Speaker 1: cruelest phases he must bear himself as if he were immune,
- 9:11Speaker 1: and this being the custom, he may be called upon
- 9:14Speaker 1: to endure much without the relief of striking out with
- 9:17Speaker 1: manly blows. An enemy, guessing his case and possessing the
- 9:21Speaker 1: infernal gift whose joy is to dishearten and do hurt
- 9:24Speaker 1: with courteous despitefulness, may plant a poisoned arrow here and
- 9:28Speaker 1: there with neatness and fine touch, while his bound victim
- 9:32Speaker 1: can with decency neither start nor utter brave howls nor
- 9:35Speaker 1: guard himself, but must sit still and listen, hospitably supplying
- 9:40Speaker 1: smoke and drink and being careful not to make an
- 9:42Speaker 1: ass of himself. Therefore Mount Dunstan pushed the cigars nearer
- 9:47Speaker 1: to his visitor, and waved his hand hospitably towards the
- 9:50Speaker 1: whisky and soda. There was no reason, in fact, why Anstruthers,
- 9:54Speaker 1: or any one indeed but Penzance, should suspect that he
- 9:57Speaker 1: had become somewhat mad in secret. the man's talk was
- 10:01Speaker 1: marked merely by the lightly disparaging malice which was rarely
- 10:04Speaker 1: to be missed from any speech of his which touched
- 10:07Speaker 1: on others yet it might have been a thing arranged
- 10:10Speaker 1: beforehand to suggest adroitly either lies or truth which would
- 10:14Speaker 1: make a man see every sickeningly good reason for feeling
- 10:17Speaker 1: that in this contest he did not count for a
- 10:19Speaker 1: man at all it has all been pretty obvious said
- 10:23Speaker 1: sir nigel there is a sort of cynicism in the
- 10:26Speaker 1: openness of the siege my impression is that almost every
- 10:30Speaker 1: youngster who has met her has taken a shot tommy
- 10:33Speaker 1: allenby scrambling up from his knees in one of the
- 10:35Speaker 1: rose gardens was a satisfying sight His much-talked-of passion for
- 10:39Speaker 1: Jane Lithcombe was temporarily in abeyance. The rain swirled in
- 10:43Speaker 1: a torrent against the window, and casually glancing outside at
- 10:47Speaker 1: the tossing gardens, he went on.' She is enjoying herself.
- 10:51Speaker 1: Why not? She has the spirit of the huntress. I
- 10:55Speaker 1: don't think she talks nonsense about friendship to the captives
- 10:58Speaker 1: of her bow and spear. She knows she can always
- 11:01Speaker 1: get what she wants. A girl like that must have
- 11:03Speaker 1: an arrogance of mind. And she is not a young saint.'
- 11:07Speaker 1: She is one of the women born with the look
- 11:09Speaker 1: in her eyes. I own I should not like to
- 11:12Speaker 1: be in the place of any primeval poor brute who
- 11:14Speaker 1: really went mad over her, and counted her millions as
- 11:18Speaker 1: so much dirt. Mount Dunstan answered with a shrug of
- 11:22Speaker 1: his big shoulders. Apparently he would seem as remote from
- 11:27Speaker 1: the reason of to-day as the men who lived in
- 11:29Speaker 1: the land when Hengist and Horsa came, or when Caesar
- 11:32Speaker 1: landed at Deal. He would seem as remote to her
- 11:35Speaker 1: with a shrug also. I should not like to contend
- 11:38Speaker 1: that his point of view would not interest her, or
- 11:41Speaker 1: that she would particularly discourage him. Her eyes would call him,
- 11:45Speaker 1: without malice or intention, no doubt, but your early Britain
- 11:48Speaker 1: chaol or earl would be as well understood by her.
- 11:51Speaker 1: Your New York beauty who has lived in the marketplace
- 11:54Speaker 1: knows principally the prices of things. He was not ill-pleased
- 11:58Speaker 1: with himself. He was putting it well and getting rather
- 12:01Speaker 1: even with her. If this fellow with his shut mouth
- 12:04Speaker 1: had a sore spot hidden anywhere, he was giving him
- 12:07Speaker 1: to think, and he would find himself thinking, while, whatsoever
- 12:10Speaker 1: he thought, he would be obliged to continue to keep
- 12:13Speaker 1: his ugly mouth shut. The great idea was to say
- 12:16Speaker 1: things without saying them, to set your hearer's mind to
- 12:19Speaker 1: saying them for you. What strikes one most is a
- 12:23Speaker 1: sort of commercial brilliance in her. taking up his thread
- 12:26Speaker 1: again after a smilingly reflective pause. It quite exhilarates one
- 12:31Speaker 1: by its novelty, the spice in it. We English have
- 12:34Speaker 1: not a look-in when we're dealing with Americans, and yet
- 12:37Speaker 1: France calls us a nation of shopkeepers. My impression is
- 12:41Speaker 1: that their women take little inventories of every house they enter,
- 12:45Speaker 1: of every man they meet. I heard her once speaking
- 12:48Speaker 1: to my wife about this place as if she'd lived
- 12:50Speaker 1: in it, SHE SPOKE OF THE CLOSED WINDOWS AND THE
- 12:53Speaker 1: STATE OF THE GARDENS, OF BROKEN FOUNTAINS AND FALLEN ARCHES.
- 12:58Speaker 1: SHE EVIDENTLY DEPLORED THE DETERIORATION OF THINGS WHICH REPRESENTED CAPITAL.
- 13:02Speaker 1: SHE HAS INVENTORIED DUNHAM, NO DOUBT. THAT WILL GIVE WESTHOLT
- 13:06Speaker 1: A CHANCE. BUT SHE WILL DO NOTHING UNTIL AFTER HER
- 13:09Speaker 1: NEXT YEAR'S SEASON IN LONDON, THAT I'D SWEAR. I LOOK
- 13:12Speaker 1: FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR. IT'LL BE WORTH WATCHING. SHE'S BEEN
- 13:16Speaker 1: TRAINING MY WIFE. A sister who has married an Englishman
- 13:19Speaker 1: and has at least spent some years of her life
- 13:21Speaker 1: in England has a certain established air. When she is
- 13:25Speaker 1: presented one knows she will be a sensation. After that— he
- 13:29Speaker 1: hesitated a moment, smiling not too pleasantly— After that, said
- 13:34Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan, the deluge. Exactly, the deluge which usually sweeps
- 13:40Speaker 1: girls off their feet, but it will not sweep her
- 13:43Speaker 1: off hers. She will stand quite firm in the flood
- 13:46Speaker 1: and lose sight of nothing of importance which floats past.
- 13:50Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan took him up. He was sick of hearing
- 13:52Speaker 1: the fellow's voice. There will be a good many things,
- 13:56Speaker 1: he said. There will be great personages and small ones,
- 13:59Speaker 1: pomps and vanities, glittering things and heavy ones. When she
- 14:03Speaker 1: sees what she wants, said Anne Struthers, she will hold
- 14:06Speaker 1: out her hand, knowing it will come to her. The
- 14:09Speaker 1: things which drown will not disturb her. i once made
- 14:12Speaker 1: the blunder of suggesting that she might need protection against
- 14:15Speaker 1: the importunate as if she had been an english girl
- 14:18Speaker 1: it was an idiotic thing to do because mount dunstan
- 14:23Speaker 1: for the moment had lost his head and struthers had
- 14:26Speaker 1: maddeningly paused she answered that if it became necessary she
- 14:31Speaker 1: might perhaps be able to protect herself she was as
- 14:34Speaker 1: cool and frank as a boy no air pense about
- 14:37Speaker 1: it merely consciousness of being able to put things in
- 14:40Speaker 1: their right places made a mere male relative feel like
- 14:43Speaker 1: a fool. When are things in their right places? To
- 14:48Speaker 1: his credit, be it spoken, Mount Dunstan managed to say
- 14:51Speaker 1: it as if in the mere putting together of idle words.
- 14:54Speaker 1: What man likes to be reminded of his right place?
- 14:58Speaker 1: No man wants to be put in his right place.
- 15:00Speaker 1: There is always another place which seems more desirable. She
- 15:04Speaker 1: knows if we others do not. I suppose my right
- 15:08Speaker 1: place is at Stornham, conducting myself as the brother-in-law of
- 15:11Speaker 1: a fair American should. I suppose yours is here, shut
- 15:15Speaker 1: up among your closed corridors and locked doors. There must
- 15:18Speaker 1: be a lot of them in a house like this.
- 15:21Speaker 1: Don't you sometimes feel it too large for you?'' Always,'
- 15:25Speaker 1: answered Mount Dunstan. The fact that he added nothing else,
- 15:29Speaker 1: and met a rapid side-glance with unmoving red-brown eyes gazing
- 15:33Speaker 1: out from under rugged brows, perhaps irritated Anne Struthers. He
- 15:37Speaker 1: had been rather enjoying himself, but he had not enjoyed
- 15:40Speaker 1: himself enough. There was no denying that his plaything had
- 15:44Speaker 1: not openly flinched. Plainly he was not good at flinching,
- 15:48Speaker 1: and Struthers wondered how far a man might go. He
- 15:51Speaker 1: tried again. She likes the place, though she has a
- 15:54Speaker 1: natural disdain for its condition. That is practical American. Things
- 15:59Speaker 1: which are going to pieces because money is not spent
- 16:01Speaker 1: upon them, mere money, of which all the people who
- 16:04Speaker 1: count for anything have so much— are inevitably rather disdained.
- 16:09Speaker 1: They are out of it. But she likes the estate.
- 16:12Speaker 1: As he watched Mount Dunstan, he felt sure he'd got
- 16:15Speaker 1: it at last, the right thing. If you were a
- 16:18Speaker 1: duke with fifty thousand a year, with a distinctly nasty,
- 16:22Speaker 1: amicably humorous, faint laugh, she would, by the Lord, I
- 16:26Speaker 1: believe she would take it over, and you with it.
- 16:29Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan got up. In his rough walking tweeds he
- 16:32Speaker 1: looked over big and heavy and perilous. For two seconds
- 16:36Speaker 1: Nigel Anstruthers would not have been surprised if he had,
- 16:39Speaker 1: without warning, slapped his face, or knocked him over, or
- 16:42Speaker 1: boiled him out of his chair and kicked him. He
- 16:45Speaker 1: would not have liked it, but for two seconds it
- 16:47Speaker 1: would have been no surprise. In fact he instinctively braced
- 16:51Speaker 1: his not-too-firm muscles. But nothing of the sort occurred. During
- 16:56Speaker 1: the two seconds, perhaps three, Mount Dunstan stood still and
- 16:59Speaker 1: looked down at him. the brief space at an end
- 17:02Speaker 1: he walked over to the hearth and stood with his
- 17:04Speaker 1: back to the big fireplace you don't like her he
- 17:08Speaker 1: said and his manner was that of a man dealing
- 17:11Speaker 1: with a matter of fact why do you talk about
- 17:13Speaker 1: her he had got away again quite away an ugly
- 17:18Speaker 1: flush shot over anstruthers face there was one more thing
- 17:22Speaker 1: to say whether it was idiotic to say it or
- 17:24Speaker 1: not things can always be denied afterwards should denial appear
- 17:28Speaker 1: necessary and for the moment his special devil possessed him.'
- 17:32Speaker 1: I do not like her,' and his mouth twisted.' Do
- 17:36Speaker 1: I not? I am not an old woman. I am
- 17:39Speaker 1: a man like others. I chance to like her too much.'
- 17:43Speaker 1: There was a short silence. Mount Dunstan broke it.' Then,'
- 17:47Speaker 1: he remarked,' you had better emigrate to some country with
- 17:50Speaker 1: a climate which suits you. I should say that England,
- 17:53Speaker 1: for the present, does not.'' I shall stay where I am,'
- 17:56Speaker 1: answered Anne Struthers, with a slight hoarseness of voice, which
- 18:00Speaker 1: made it necessary for him to clear his throat. I
- 18:03Speaker 1: shall stay where she is. I will have that satisfaction
- 18:06Speaker 1: at least. She does not mind. I am only a
- 18:09Speaker 1: rackety middle-aged brother-in-law, and she can take care of herself.
- 18:13Speaker 1: As I told you, she has the spirit of the huntress.''
- 18:15Speaker 1: Look here,' said Mount Dunstan, quite without haste and with
- 18:19Speaker 1: an iron civility,' I am going to take the liberty
- 18:22Speaker 1: of suggesting something. If this thing is true, it would
- 18:25Speaker 1: be as well not to talk about it. as well
- 18:29Speaker 1: for me or for her, and there was a serene
- 18:32Speaker 1: significance in the query. Mount Dunstan thought a few seconds.'
- 18:36Speaker 1: I confess,' he said slowly, and he planted his fine
- 18:41Speaker 1: blow between the eyes well and with directness,' I confess
- 18:44Speaker 1: that it would not have occurred to me to ask
- 18:46Speaker 1: you to do anything or refrain from doing it for
- 18:49Speaker 1: her sake.'' Thank you, perhaps you are right. One learns
- 18:53Speaker 1: that one must protect oneself. I shall not talk, neither
- 18:57Speaker 1: will you, I know that.' I was a fool to
- 18:59Speaker 1: let it out. The storm is over. I must ride home.
- 19:03Speaker 1: He rose from his seat and stood smiling. It would
- 19:06Speaker 1: smash up things nicely if the new beauty's appearance in
- 19:09Speaker 1: the great world were preceded by chatter of the unseemly
- 19:12Speaker 1: affection of some adorer of ill repute. Unfairly enough, it
- 19:16Speaker 1: is always the woman who is hurt. Unless, said Mount
- 19:20Speaker 1: Dunstan civilly, there should arise the poor primeval brute in
- 19:24Speaker 1: his Neolithic wrath, to seize on the man to blame
- 19:27Speaker 1: and break every bone and sinew in his damned body.
- 19:31Speaker 1: The newspapers would enjoy that more than she would, answered
- 19:34Speaker 1: Sir Nigel. She does not like the newspapers. They are
- 19:37Speaker 1: too ready to disparage the multimillionaire and cackle about members
- 19:41Speaker 1: of his family. The unhidden hatred, which still professed to
- 19:45Speaker 1: hide itself in the depths of their pupils as they
- 19:47Speaker 1: regarded each other, had its birth in a passion as
- 19:50Speaker 1: elemental as the quakings of the earth, or the rage
- 19:53Speaker 1: of two lions in a desert lashing their flanks in
- 19:56Speaker 1: the blazing sun. It was well that at this moment
- 19:59Speaker 1: they should part ways. Sir Nigel's horse being brought, he
- 20:03Speaker 1: went on the way which was his.' It was a
- 20:06Speaker 1: mistake to say what I did,' he said before going.
- 20:09Speaker 1: I ought to have held my tongue, but I am
- 20:12Speaker 1: under the same roof with her. At any rate, that
- 20:14Speaker 1: is a privilege no other man shares with me.' He
- 20:17Speaker 1: rode off smartly, his horse's hooves splashing in the rain-pools
- 20:21Speaker 1: left in the avenue after the storm. He was not
- 20:24Speaker 1: so sure, after all, that he had made a mistake,
- 20:26Speaker 1: and for the moment he was not in the mood
- 20:28Speaker 1: to care whether he had made one or not. His
- 20:31Speaker 1: agreeable smile showed itself as he thought of the obstinate,
- 20:34Speaker 1: proud brute he had left behind, sitting alone among his
- 20:37Speaker 1: shut doors and closed corridors. They had not shaken hands
- 20:41Speaker 1: either at meeting or parting. Queer thing it was, the
- 20:45Speaker 1: kind of enmity a man could feel for another when
- 20:48Speaker 1: he was upset by a woman. It was amusing enough
- 20:51Speaker 1: that it should be she who was upsetting him after
- 20:53Speaker 1: all these years, impudent little Betty with the ferocious manner.
- 20:59Speaker 1: End of chapter 37