United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Ransomes came, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. Mr. Eliott. She began to wonder whether the Eliotts' hospitality would stand the strain. She also wondered whether her other friends in Thurston Square were wondering; and what Canon Wharton must think of it. It had not occurred to her to wonder what Mr. Gorst would think. At first he thought nothing of it.
That man you dislike so much stood by Walter when your friends the Eliotts, my child, turned their virtuous backs on him when none of his own people, even, would lend him a helping hand. It was Lawson Hannay who saved him." "Saved him?" "Saved him. Moved heaven and earth to get him out of that woman's clutches." Anne shook her head, and put her hands over her eyes to dispel her vision of him.
Gorst, which would come to the same thing for Anne, but that she would not have Anne without her husband. Miss Proctor could be depended on to take a light view of any situation, a view entirely her own. So the Gardners, as well as the Eliotts, rallied round Mrs. Majendie, and offered their house also as her refuge.
As Majendie declined more and more on his inferior friendships, Anne became more and more dependent on the Eliotts and the Gardners. Her evenings would have been intolerable without them. Edith no longer needed her. Edith, they still said, was growing better, or certainly no worse; and Mr. Gorst spent his evenings in Prior Street with Edie.
But Majendie lacked her passion and her inspiration. He simply said he was delighted to hear it, and that he would make a point of being at home. He would have to give up an engagement which he would not have made if he had known. But that did not greatly matter. They came, the Eliotts and the rest, and Miss Proctor again pronounced him charming.
Rather against his judgment, he endeavoured to explain, "We simply can't not ask him, you know." "Ask him by all means. But I shall have to put myself on the Gardners, or the Proctors, for the Eliotts are away." "Don't be absurd. You know you won't be allowed to do anything of the sort." "There's nothing else left for me to do."
When she announced, at breakfast one Monday, that she had asked the Eliotts, the Gardners, Canon Wharton, and Miss Proctor, for dinner on Wednesday, she uttered each name as if it had been a challenge, and looked for some irritating maneuver in response. He would, of course, proclaim that he was going to dine with the Hannays, or he would effect a retreat to Mr. Gorst's rooms, or to his club.
The Eliotts and the Gardners those are the people who should have been your friends, not the Hannays and the Ransomes; and not, believe me, darling, Mr. Gorst." For a moment Edith unveiled the tragic suffering in her eyes. It passed, and left her gaze grave and lucid and serene. "What do you know of Mr. Gorst?" "Enough, dear, to see that he isn't fit for you to know."
Do you want me to accept a lower standard that his, or my mother's?" "Have you considered what my standard would look like if I turned my best friend out of the house a man I've known all my life just because my wife doesn't happen to approve of him? I know nothing about your Eliotts; but if Edie can stand him, I should think you might." "I," said Anne coldly, "am not in love with him."
They talked about the Eliotts, for the Canon's catholicity bridged the gulf between Thurston Square and vociferous, high-living, fashionable Scale. Eliott from St. Saviour's to All Souls. He hoped also to win over Mrs. Eliott's distinguished friend. For the Canon was mortal. He had yielded to the unspiritual seduction of filling All Souls by emptying other men's churches.
Word Of The Day