One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
that comes up. What shall I do when I lose you! You always
make me feel you’ve a lot of poetry ready-made in you.’
‘We will write. And you will have your husband then.’
‘When I had finished my letter to Ned, I dropped my head
on it and behaved like a fool for several minutes. I can’t bear
the thought of losing you!’
‘But you don’t lose me,’ said Nesta; ‘there is no ground for
your supposing that you will. And your wish not to lose me,
binds me to you more closely.’
‘If you knew!’ Mrs. Marsett caught at her slippery tongue,
and she carolled: ‘If we all knew everything, we should be
wiser, and what a naked lot of people we should be!’
They were crossing the passage of a cavalcade of gentlemen,
at the end of the East Cliff. One among them, large
and dominant, with a playful voice of brass, cried out:
‘And how do you do, Mrs. Judith Marsett—ha? Beautiful
morning?’
Mrs. Marsett’s figure tightened; she rode stonily erect,
looked level ahead. Her woman’s red mouth was shut fast on
a fighting underlip.
‘He did not salute you,’ Nesta remarked, to justify her for
not having responded.
The lady breathed a low thunder: ‘Coward!’
‘He cannot have intended to insult you,’ said Nesta.
‘That man knows I will not notice him. He is a beast. He
will learn that I carry a horsewhip.’
‘Are you not taking a little incident too much to heart?’
The sigh of the heavily laden came from Mrs. Marsett.
‘Am I pale? I dare say. I shall go on my knees tonight hating
myself that I was born “one of the frail sex.” We are, or
we should ride at the coward and strike him to the ground.
Pray, pray do not look distressed! Now you know my Christian
name. That dog of a man barks it out on the roads. It
doesn’t matter.’
‘He has offended you before?’
‘You are near me. They can’t hurt me, can’t touch me, when
I think that I ‘m talking with you. How I envy those who
call you by your Christian name!’
‘Nesta,’ said smiling Nesta. The smile was forced, that she
might show kindness, for the lady was jarring on her.
Mrs. Marsett opened her lips: ‘Oh, my God, I shall be
crying!—let’s gallop. No, wait, I’ll tell you. I wish I could! I
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