Leonora by Arnold Bennett

Author:Arnold Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634214957
Publisher: Duke Classics

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'Well,' the visitor exclaimed familiarly.

They were seated by the fire in the drawing-room. Leonora was removing her gloves.

'Well?' she repeated. 'And so you still think Milly ought to be allowed to go on the stage?'

'I think she will go on the stage,' he said.

'You can't imagine how it upsets me even to think of it.' Leonora seemed to appeal for his sympathy.

'Oh, yes, I can,' he replied. 'Didn't I tell you the other night that I knew exactly how you felt? But you've got to get over that, I guess. You've got to get on to yourself. Mr. Myatt told me what he said to you—'

'So Uncle Meshach has been talking about it too?' she interrupted.

'Why, yes, certainly. Of course he's quite right. Milly's bound to go her own way. Why not make up your mind to it, and help her, and straighten things out for her?'

'But—'

'Look here, Mrs. Stanway,' he leaned forward; 'will you tell me just why it upsets you to think of your daughter going on the stage?'

'I don't know. I can't explain. But it does.'

She smiled at him, smoothing out her gloves one after the other on her lap.

'It's nothing but superstition, you know,' he said gently, returning her smile.

'Yes,' she admitted. 'I suppose it is.'

He was silent for a moment, as if undecided what to say next. She glanced at him surreptitiously, and took in all the details of his attire—the high white collar, the dark tweed suit obviously of American origin, the thin silver chain that emerged from beneath his waistcoat and disappeared on a curve into the hip pocket of his trousers, the boots with their long pointed toes. His heavy moustache, and the smooth bluish chin, struck her as ideally masculine.

'No parents,' he burst out, 'no parents can see things from their children's point of view.'

'Oh!' she protested. 'There are times when I feel so like my daughters that I am them.'

He nodded. 'Yes,' he said, abandoning his position at once, 'I can believe that. You're an exception. If I hadn't sort of known all the time that you were, I wouldn't be here now talking like this.'

'It's so accidental, the whole business,' she remarked, branching off to another aspect of the case in order to mask the confusion caused by the sincere flattery in his voice. 'It was only by chance that Milly had that particular part at all. Suppose she hadn't had it. What then?'

'Everything's accidental,' he replied. 'Everything that ever happened is accidental, in a way—in another it isn't. If you look at your own life, for instance, you'll find it's been simply a series of coincidences. I'm sure mine has been. Sheer chance from beginning to end.'

'Yes,' she said thoughtfully, and put her chin in the palm of her left hand.

'And as for the stage, why, nearly every one goes on the stage by chance. It just occurs, that's all. And moreover I guarantee that the parents of fifty per cent. of all the actresses now on the

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