FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  
gger bone, and probably irritate Kitty to the point of rebellion? Yet how induce her to go with any one else? Lady Tranmore was out of the question. Margaret French, perhaps? Then, suddenly, Ashe was assailed by an inner laughter, hollow and discomfortable. Things were come to a pretty pass when he must even dream of resigning because a man whom he despised would haunt his house, and absorb the company of his wife; when, moreover, he could not even think of a remedy for such a state of things without falling back dismayed from the certainty of Kitty's temper--Kitty's wild and furious temper. For during the last fortnight, as it seemed to Ashe, all the winds of tempest had been blowing through his house. Himself, the servants, even Margaret, even the child, had all suffered. He also had lost his temper several times--such a thing had scarcely happened to him since his childhood. He thought of it as of a kind of physical stain or weakness. To keep an even and stoical mind, to laugh where one could not conquer--this had always seemed to him the first condition of decent existence. And now to be wrangling over an expenditure, an engagement, a letter, the merest nothing--whether it was a fine day or it wasn't--could anything be more petty, degrading, intolerable? He vowed that this should stop. Whatever happened, he and Kitty should not degenerate into a pair of scolds--besmirch their life with quarrels as ugly as they were silly. He would wrestle with her, his beloved, unreasonable, foolish Kitty; he ought, of course, to have done so before. But it was only within the last week or so that the horizon had suddenly darkened--the thing grown serious. And now this beastly paragraph! But, after all, what did such garbage matter? It would of course be a comfort to thrash the editor. But our modern life breeds such creatures, and they have to be borne. * * * * * He let himself into a silent house. His letters lay on the hall-table. Among them was a handwriting which arrested him. He remembered, yet could not put a name to it. Then he turned the envelope. "H'm. Lady Grosville!" He read it, standing there, then thrust it into his pocket, thinking angrily that there seemed to be a good many fools in this world who occupied themselves with other people's business. Exaggeration, of course, damnable <i>parti pris</i>! When did she ever see Kitty except with a jaundiced eye? "I wonder Kitty condes
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161  
162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
temper
 

happened

 

Margaret

 
suddenly
 

Whatever

 

matter

 

breeds

 

modern

 

garbage

 

besmirch


scolds

 
editor
 

comfort

 
thrash
 
degenerate
 

paragraph

 

unreasonable

 

creatures

 

foolish

 

horizon


beloved

 

beastly

 

wrestle

 

darkened

 

quarrels

 
occupied
 

business

 

people

 

angrily

 

thinking


Exaggeration

 

damnable

 
jaundiced
 

condes

 

pocket

 

thrust

 

handwriting

 

silent

 

letters

 

arrested


Grosville
 
standing
 

envelope

 

remembered

 

turned

 
condition
 

despised

 
absorb
 
company
 

resigning