One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
only a few minutes. In any case, we are sure that the hour
will pass. Our own arrive? Certainly.
‘Capital place for children,’ he exclaimed. And here startlingly
before him in the clusters of boys and girls, was the
difference between young ones and their elders feeling quite
as young: the careless youngsters have not to go and sit in
the room with a virulent old woman, and express penitence
and what not, and hear words of pardon, after their holiday
scamper and stare at the caged beasts.
Attention to the children precipitated him upon acquaintances,
hitherto cleverly shunned. He nodded them off, after
the brightest of greetings.
Such anodyne as he could squeeze from the incarcerated
wild creatures, was exhausted. He fell to work at Nataly’s
‘aristocracy of the contempt of luxury’; signifying, that we
the wealthy will not exist to pamper flesh, but we live for the
promotion of brotherhood:—ay, and that our England must
make some great moral stand, if she is not to fall to the rear
and down. Unuttered, it caught the skirts of the Idea: it evaporated
when spoken. Still, this theme was almost an exorcism
of Mrs. Burman. He consulted his watch. ‘Thirteen minutes
to four. I must be punctual,’ he said. Nataly stepped faster.
Seated in the carriage, he told her he had never felt the
horror of that place before. ‘Put me down at the corner of
the terrace, dear: I won’t drive to the door.’
‘I come with you, Victor,’ she replied.
After entreaties and reasons intermixed, to melt her resolve,
he saw she was firm: and he asked himself, whether he
might not be constitutionally better adapted to persuade than
to dissuade. The question thumped. Having that house of
drugs in view, he breathed more freely for the prospect of
feeling his Nataly near him beneath the roof.
‘You really insist, dear love?’ he appealed to her: and her
answer: ‘It must be,’ left no doubt: though he chose to say:
‘Not because of standing by me?’ And she said: ‘For my peace,
Victor.’ They stepped to the pavement. The carriage was dismissed.
Seventeen houses of the terrace fronting the park led to
the funereal one: and the bell was tolled in the breast of each
of the couple advancing with an air of calmness to the inevitable
black door.
Jarniman opened it. ‘His mistress was prepared to see
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