FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
could put on his wife's tombstone would be, '_She was interestin' to live with_.' So I tell you, Eleanor, if you want to hold that boy, _make him laugh_!" She was so much in earnest that for a few minutes she actually stopped talking! Eleanor could not make Maurice laugh--she never made anybody laugh! But for a while she did "hold him"--because he was a gallant youngster, making the best of his bargain. That he had begun to know it was a bad bargain did not lessen his regret for his wife's childlessness, which he knew made her unhappy, nor his pity for her physical forlornness--which he blamed largely on himself: "She almost died that night on the mountain, to save my life!" But he had ceased to be touched by her reiterated longing for children; he was even a little bored by it. And he was very much bored by her reproaches, her faint tempers and their following ardors of repentant love--bitternesses, and cloying sweetnesses! Yet, in spite of these things, the boarding-house marriage survived the lengthening of the fifty-four minutes of ecstasy into three years. But it might not have survived its own third winter had it not been that Maurice's unfaithfulness enforced his faithfulness. For by spring that squabble about lead pencils, which had turned his careless steps toward the bridge, had turned his life so far from Eleanor's that he had been untrue to her. He had not meant to be untrue; nothing had been farther from his mind or purpose. But there came a bitter Sunday afternoon in March ... Eleanor, saying he did not "understand her," cried about something--afterward Maurice was not sure just what--perhaps it was a question from one of the other boarders about the early 'eighties, and she felt herself insulted; "As if I could remember!" she told Maurice; but whatever it was, he had tried to comfort her by joking about it. Then she had reproached him for his unkindness--to most crying wives a joke is unkind. Then she had said that he was tired of her! At which he took refuge in silence--and she cried out that he acknowledged it! "You can't deny it! You're tired of me because I'm older than you!" And he said, between his teeth, "If you were old enough to have any sense, I wouldn't be tired of you." She gave a cry; then stood, the back of her hand against her lips, her eyes wide with terror. Maurice threw down a book he had been trying to read, got up, plunged into his overcoat, pulled his hat down over h
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Maurice
 

Eleanor

 

bargain

 
untrue
 
survived
 
minutes
 

turned

 

afternoon

 

remember

 

bitter


joking
 
unkindness
 

crying

 

reproached

 

Sunday

 

farther

 

comfort

 

insulted

 

understand

 

afterward


boarders
 

eighties

 

purpose

 
question
 

terror

 
pulled
 
overcoat
 

plunged

 

wouldn

 

silence


acknowledged

 

refuge

 
unkind
 
physical
 

forlornness

 
unhappy
 

lessen

 

regret

 

childlessness

 

blamed


largely

 

ceased

 
touched
 

reiterated

 
mountain
 
earnest
 

tombstone

 

interestin

 
youngster
 

making