'
'Yes; but try to understand. Emma came up to my room at supper-time, and as
usual we talked. I didn't say anything about my uncle's death--yet I felt
the necessity of telling her creep fatally upon me. There was a conflict in
my mind, between common-sense and that awful sentimentality which is my
curse. When Emma came up again after supper, she mentioned that her mother
was gone with a friend to a theatre. "Why don't you go?" I said. "Oh, I
don't go anywhere." "But after all," I urged consolingly, "August isn't
exactly the time for enjoying the theatre." She admitted it wasn't; but
there was the Exhibition at Earl's Court, she had heard so much of it, and
wanted to go. "Then suppose we go together one of these evenings?"
'You see? Idiot!--and I couldn't help it. My tongue spoke these imbecile
words in spite of my brain. All very well, if I had meant what another man
would; but I didn't, and the girl knew I didn't. And she looked at me--and
then--why, mere brute instinct did the rest--no, not mere instinct, for it
was complicated with that idiot desire to see how the girl would look, hear
what she would say, when she knew that I had given her eighty thousand
pounds. You can't understand?'
'As a bit of morbid psychology--yes.
Pages:
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417