Lament for Leto by Gladys Mitchell

Author:Gladys Mitchell [Mitchell, Gladys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

Her next visitor was Chloe Cowie. She seated herself with a tired or perhaps a discontented sigh.

“What is the difference,” she demanded, “between a man and a botanist?”

“A botanist can be of either sex.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that! Henry wants to climb rocks, and his only interest in going to Delphi is to find specimens of horehound and various spurges and tulips and orchids. I’m devoted to flowers, naturally, but I don’t want to scramble about to find them. He has been fretting, too, in the most boring and unnecessary way, because we did not visit more of the Cyclades, and he was quite unkind when that clumsy young man hurt me so much the other day and I had to be helped back to the yacht. Then you yourself know in what a cavalier way he spoke to me when I was almost thrown overboard by that dangerous Greek girl and might have been attacked by a shark. I am beginning to wonder what my married life is to be. A man who thinks more of his obscure and revolting plants than he does of his wife is going to make a very inconsiderate husband. As for Ronald Dick, well, I could have an easy conquest there, but how could I dare to live in the same house as Hero?”

“Later on,” said Dame Beatrice, “you may be very glad to have married a man who has an overriding hobby. Think how your work would suffer if he expected you to be always at his disposal. I refer, of course, to Mr. Owen.”

“But that’s just what he does expect,” complained Chloe. “He can’t understand it that I don’t like scrambling about and spraining my ankles and getting stuck on dangerous ledges. Oh, Dame Beatrice, do you think I’ve made a mistake in accepting him? I begin to believe I have.”

“Well, if you think so, there is still time to rectify matters, is there not?”

“But what reason could I give? Besides, apart from this monomania of his, I find him extremely attractive. He is such a glorious brute of a man, so different from poor Ronald Dick who, as I say, certainly would make me an offer if I were free.”

“You would be little better off, I fear. Mr. Dick is also a monomaniac. Would you wish to spend your married life living on archaeological sites and assembling potsherds?”

“But, of course, there are those two growing boys,” said Chloe, ignoring the question, “and, on Ronald’s side, not only Hero but Simonides.” She sighed again, sepulchrally this time, and added, “I wish I knew what to do. I’ve a very good mind to go home.”

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