United States or Poland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But, again, there were many months when she dropped altogether or seemed to drop out of his mind and memory, when he was entirely absorbed in the only interests she had left him his art, his quarrels, and his relation to Eugénie de Pastourelles.
He had never dreamt that such women existed. His own views of women were those of the shopkeeping middle class, practical, selfish, or sensual. But he had been a reader of books; and through Madame de Pastourelles certain sublimities or delicacies of poetry began to seem to him either less fantastic or more real.
He and she had asked for respite in vain, however; and M. de Pastourelles slept with his fathers. Since his death, her strength had failed her. There had been no definite illness, but a giving way for some six or seven months of nature's resisting powers.
The meal went on rather silently. Fenwick's conscience said to him, 'Take her back with you! whatever happens, take her to London she's moping her life out here. And an inner voice clamoured in reply 'Take her to those rooms? in the very middle of the struggle with those two pictures? go through all the agitation and discomfort of explanations with Lord Findon and Madame de Pastourelles? run the risk of estranging them, and of distracting your own mind from your work at this critical moment? the further risk, moreover, of Phoebe's jealousy?
Little as Fenwick talked about Madame de Pastourelles, Phoebe understood perfectly that she was a woman of high education and refinement, and that her stored and subtle mind was at once an attraction and a cause of humiliation to John.
In the midst of these developments, so astonishing and disappointing to Fenwick's best friends, Eugénie de Pastourelles was suddenly summoned to the death-bed of the husband from whom she had been separated for nearly fifteen years.
But the concealment on which his life was based, the tragedy at the heart of it, worked like 'a worm i' the bud. The first check to his artistic career the 'hanging' incident and its sequel produced an effect of shock and disintegration out of all proportion to its apparent cause inexplicable indeed to the spectators. Madame de Pastourelles wondered, and sorrowed.
Fenwick was silent a moment, and then said aggressively We can't all of us have the same chances as Mr. Welby, for instance. Madame de Pastourelles looked at him in astonishment. What an extraordinary obsession! They seemed not to be able to escape from Arthur Welby's name: yet it never cropped up without producing some sign of irritation in this strange young man.
After his departure, Madame de Pastourelles would inform her father of what had happened; a famous solicitor, Lord Findon's old friend, was to be consulted; all possible measures were to be taken once more for Phoebe's discovery. At the door of the hotel, Fenwick raised his hat. Eugénie did not offer her hand; but her sweet face suddenly trembled afresh before her will could master it.
Madame de Pastourelles listened attentively drew him out, indeed made him show himself to the best advantage. And presently, at a moment of pause, she said, with a smile and a shrug, 'How happy you are to have an art! Now I She let her hand fall with a little plaintive movement. 'I am sure you paint, said Fenwick, eagerly. 'No. 'Then you are musical? 'Not at all. I embroider
Word Of The Day