One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
if she does not follow a strong right lead:—but be patient, of
course. And the word patience here means more than most
men contain. Certainly a man like Jacob Blathenoy was a
mouthful for any woman: and he had bought his wife, he
deserved no pity. Not? Probably not. That view, however, is
unwholesome and opens on slides. Pity of his wife, too, gets
to be fervidly active with her portrait, fetches her breath about
us. As for condemnation of the poor little woman, her case
was not unexampled, though the sudden flare of it startled
rather. Mrs. Victor could read men and women closely. Yes,
and Victor, when he schemed—but Dartrey declined to be
throwing blame right or left. More than by his breakfast,
and in a preferable direction, he was refreshed by Skepsey’s
narrative of the deeds of Matilda Pridden.
‘The right sort of girl for you to know, Skepsey,’ he said.
‘The best in life is a good woman.’
Skepsey exhibited his book of the Gallic howl.
‘They have their fits now and then, and they’re soon over
and forgotten,’ Dartrey said. ‘The worst of it is, that we remember.’
After the morning’s visit to his uncle, he peered at half a
dozen sticks in the corner of the room, grasped their handles,
and selected the Demerara supple-jack, for no particular reason;
the curved knot was easy to the grasp. It was in his
mind, that this person signing herself Judith Marsett, might
have something to say, which intimately concerned Nesta.
He fell to brooding on it, until he wondered why he had not
been made a trifle anxious by the reading of the note overnight.
Skepsey was left at Nesta’s house.
Dartrey found himself expected by the servant waiting on
Mrs. Marsett.
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