One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
indulgence in reflection: a disease never afflicting him anterior
to the stupid fall on London Bridge. He rubbed instinctively
for the punctilio-bump, and could cheat his fancy to
think a remainder of it there, just below, half an inch to the
right of, the spot where a phrenologist, invited by Nataly in
old days, had marked philo-progenitiveness on his capacious
and enviable cerebrum. He knew well it was a fancy. But it
was a fact also, that since the day of the fall (never, save in
merest glimpses, before that day), he had taken to look behind
him, as though an eye had been knocked in the back of
his head.
Then, was that day of the announcement of Lakelands to
Nataly, to be accounted a gloomy day? He would not have it so.
She was happily occupied with her purchases of furniture,
Fredi with her singing lessons, and he with his business; a
grasp of many ribands, reining-in or letting loose; always
enjoyable in the act. Recently only had he known when at
home, a relaxation, a positive pleasure in looking forward to
the hours of the City office. This was odd, but so it was; and
looking homeward from the City, he had a sense of disappointment
when it was not Concert evening. The Cormyns,
the Yatts, and Priscilla Graves, and Pempton, foolish fellow,
and that bothering Barmby, and Peridon and Catkin, were
the lineing of his nest. Well, and so they had been before
Lakelands rose. What had induced! … he suddenly felt foreign
to himself. The shrouded figure of his lost Idea on London
Bridge went by.
A peep into the folds of the shroud was granted him:—Is
it a truth, that if we are great owners of money, we are so
swollen with a force not native to us, as to be precipitated
into acts the downright contrary of our tastes?
He inquired it of his tastes, which have the bad habit of
unmeasured phrasing when they are displeased, and so they
yield no rational answer. Still he gave heed to violent extraneous
harpings against money. Epigrams of Colney’s; abuse
of it and the owners of it by Socialist orators reported in
some newspaper corner; had him by the ears.
They ceased in the presence of Lady Grace Halley, who
entered his office to tell him she was leaving town for
Whinfold, her husband’s family-seat, where the dear man
lay in evil case. She signified her resignation to the decrees
from above, saying generously:
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