One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
the big new house, among a new society, begirt by the old
nightmares and fretting devils, drew her into staring daylight
or furnace-light.
He answered: ‘Mrs. Burman has definitely decided. In pity
of us?—to be free herself?—who can say! She ‘s a woman
with a conscience—of a kind: slow, but it brings her to the
point at last. You know her, know her well. Fenellan has it
from her lawyer—her lawyer! a Mr. Carting; a thoroughly
trustworthy man—’
‘Fenellan, as a reporter?’
‘Thoroughly to be trusted on serious matters. I understand
that Mrs. Burman:—her health is awful: yes, yes; poor
woman! poor woman! we feel for her:—she has come to perceive
her duty to those she leaves behind. Consider: she HAS
used the rod. She must be tired out—if human. And she is.
One remembers traits.’
Victor sketched one or two of the traits allusively to the
hearer acquainted with them. They received strong colouring
from midday’s Old Veuve in his blood. His voice and words
had a swing of conviction: they imparted vinousness to a
heart athirst.
The histrionic self-deceiver may be a persuasive deceiver
of another, who is again, though not ignorant of his character,
tempted to swallow the nostrums which have made so
gallant a man of him: his imperceptible sensible playing of
the part, on a substratum of sincereness, induces fascinatingly
to the like performance on our side, that we may be
armed as he is for enjoying the coveted reality through the
partial simulation of possessing it. And this is not a task to
us when we have looked our actor in the face, and seen him
bear the look, knowing that he is not intentionally untruthful;
and when we incline to be captivated by his rare theatrical
air of confidence; when it seems as an outside thought
striking us, that he may not be altogether deceived in the
present instance; when suddenly an expectation of the thing
desired is born and swims in a credible featureless vagueness
on a misty scene: and when we are being kissed and the blood
is warmed. In fine, here as everywhere along our history,
when the sensations are spirited up to drown the mind, we
become drift-matter of tides, metal to magnets. And if we
are women, who commonly allow the lead to men, getting it
for themselves only by snaky cunning or desperate adven-
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