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Updated: September 16, 2025
When the Elsmeres rose to go, she said good-by to Catherine with an excessive politeness, under which her poor guest, conscious of her own gaucherie during the evening, felt the touch of satire she was perhaps meant to feel. But when Catherine was well ahead Madame de Netteville gave Robert one of her most brilliant smiles. 'Friday evening, Mr. Elsmere; always Fridays. You will remember?
The labourers going home, the children with aprons full of crab-apples, and lips dyed by the first blackberries who passed him, got but an absent smile or salute from the rector. The interval of exaltation and recoil was over. The ship of the mind was once more labouring in alien and dreary seas. He roused himself to remember that he had been curious to see Madame de Netteville.
But only for the moment. In another minute or two the argument, begun so casually, had developed into a serious trial of strength, in which the Squire and young Wishart took the chief parts, while Mr. Spooner threw in a laugh and a sarcasm here and there. And as long as Mr. Wendover talked Madame de Netteville listened.
He spoke with a smiling courtesy as excessive as his silky moustache, his long straw-coloured beard, and his Panama hat. Madame de Netteville surveyed him with cool critical eyes. Robert smiled slightly, acknowledged the bow, but did not speak. Mr. Wishart evidently took no heed of anything but his own thoughts. He sat bolt upright with shining excited eyes.
At the same time, though Elsmere was, in truth, more interested in her friends than in her, he could not possibly be insensible to the consideration shown for him in her drawing-room. Madame de Netteville allowed herself plenty of jests with her intimates as to the young reformer's social simplicity, his dreams, his optimisms.
Robert took a seat by Madame de Netteville, whose appearance was picturesqueness itself. Her dress, a skilful mixture of black and creamy yellow, lay about her in folds, as soft, as carelessly effective as her manner.
Presently there was a pause, which she broke by saying, 'I was at your lecture last Sunday you didn't see me! 'Were you? Ah! I remember a person in black, and veiled, who puzzled me. I don't think we want you there, Madame de Netteville. His look was pleasant, but his tone had some decision in it. 'Why not? Is it only the artisans who have souls? A reformer should refuse no one.
I say know, you say feel. Where is the difference, after all, between you and any charlatan of the lot? Well, how is Madame de Netteville? 'I have not seen her for six months, Robert replied, with equal abruptness. The squire laughed a little under his breath. 'What did you think of her?
What a specimen! A boy and girl match, I suppose. What else could have induced that poor wretch to cut his throat in such fashion? He, of all men! And Eugénie de Netteville stood thinking not, apparently, of the puritanical wife; the dangerous softness which overspread the face could have had no connection with Catherine. Madame de Netteville's instinct was just.
... I know, cried Eugénie de Netteville at last, standing at bay before him, her hands locked before her, her white lips quivering, when her cup of shame was full, and her one impulse left was to strike the man who had humiliated her 'I know that you and your puritanical wife are miserable miserable.
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