An Altruist by Ouida

Author:Ouida [Ouida]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781411453463
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Marlow cannot believe his own senses. It is eleven o'clock in the morning, and he has taken nothing but some black coffee and a devilled kidney, or he really would think he had been drinking, and forgotten the debauch.

He feels that it would be very agreeable to his feelings to return to barbarian methods and pound into a jelly the highly cultured brains of the author of the Age to Come.

"But what do you marry her for?" he shouts after Bertram's retreating figure. He receives no answer, and Bertram passes away under the budding April boughs. To explain his reasons to Marlow would be indeed to throw pearls before swine.

As he walks backward in the direction of Hyde Park Corner he sees the figure of Annie Brown going down the almost deserted roadway of the drive.

"Her ankles are thick," he thinks painfully; "and why will she use such very odd words as "liberry"? Why? I believe philologists consider that the vernacular of the illiterate is the purest Saxon English spoken; but it grates unpleasantly on one's ears. Is that you, Fanshawe, at last?"

Fanshawe, who has come out of his house, which is near to the French Embassy, fixes his eyeglass on the retreating figure of the unconscious Annie. He is of a supernatural quickness of observation.

Bertram to his vexation feels extreme embarrassment. He knows he ought to repeat to Fanshawe the confession just made to Marlow, but he cannot; it sticks in his throat like a fish bone. The eyes of the potent editor are malicious and inexorable.

"I saw you from my bedroom window sitting with that young daughter of the sovereign people," remarks Fanshawe. "I wished for a Kodak. The Torch should have had an illustrated Easter number."

"You are fifty minutes late," says Bertram, irritably.

"My dressing-gown and chocolate pot are dear to me."

"You always turn night into day."

"Night is day in London, as coal and electricity are its summer. Well, sha'n't we take a hansom to Folliott's?"

"Wait a moment, Fanshawe. Sit down here."

Fanshawe complies reluctantly. "Why waste time? Let's go and settle your inheritance."

"Please go instead of me and say that I refuse. It is very simple."

"It is simple indeed! So was the remark of 'Tom's a cold'; and just about as reasonable. My dear Bertram! La nuit porte conseil, and yet you still wish to refuse?"

"Yes, I refuse; and——"

He pauses, then swallows the fish bone desperately.

"And—I am going to marry yonder daughter of the people!"

"Ah! Rumour for once is correct, then?" says the gentleman, to whom the amplification and publication of Rumor brings in £40,000 per annum.

"Yes, I marry the young woman you saw when you wished for a Kodak."

For once Fanshawe has not a syllable to say: he is dumb.

"You look astonished," remarks Bertram. "Yet with your principles——"

"Principles be damned!" says Fanshawe. "They must go to the wall when they trample on common sense."

"But surely for you no class divisions exist?" says Bertram, with some maliciousness. "Therefore of course you will congratulate me as warmly as if my future wife were that abominable thing, a duke's daughter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.