She was silent for a
minute. "They become a habit," she said finally; "love, loves, become a
habit. Only men brought up in the same atmosphere can understand. At
first Felix Winscombe will be infuriated with you for speaking, then he
will realize more, and the trouble will follow. Are you certain that you
have comprehended? It would be stupid to mistake an episode, you would
succeed only in making yourself ridiculous."
He lifted up both his hands and closed them with a quivering, relentless
force.
"Truly," Isabel Penny remarked, "truly I begin to be sorry for her.
There is something she has yet to learn about men. Nothing can be said;
and that is what your father will not penetrate. Howat, I am even a
little afraid ... now. That, I believe, is unusual for me. It's your
blackness, like powder. The explosion can kill. Nothing may be said.
Life drags us along by the hair."
Her questions about Ludowika joined to the memory of the latter's
revulsion from the primitive conditions of the Province and added to the
heaviness of his heart. He mentally denied his mother's suggestions,
drove them from him, but they left a faint enduring sting, a vague
unrest. His passion for Ludowika swelled, dominated, him; he forgot
everything but his own, supreme desire.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137