The Little Lady of the Big House / Маленькая хозяйка большого дома. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“But wait,” she resisted him, prisoning his eager hand in hers. “There is more I want to say. I remember Dick and all our past years. But I remember him to-day, as well, and to-morrow. I cannot bear the thought that any man should pity my husband[467], that you should pity him, and pity him you must when I confess that I love you more. That is why I am not sure. That is why I so quickly take it back and do not know.

“I’d die of shame if through act of mine any man pitied Dick. Truly, I would. Of all things ghastly, I can think of none so ghastly as Dick being pitied. He has never been pitied in his life. He has always been top-dog – bright, light, strong, unassailable. And more, he doesn’t deserve pity. And it’s my fault… and yours, Evan.”

She abruptly thrust Evan’s hand away.

“And every act, every permitted touch of you, does make him pitiable. Don’t you see how tangled it is for me? And then there is my own pride. That you should see me disloyal to him in little things, such as this —” (she caught his hand again and caressed it with soft fingertips) “– hurts me in my love for you, diminishes me, must diminish me in your eyes[468]. I shrink from the thought that my disloyalty to him in this I do —” (she laid his hand against her cheek) “– gives you reason to pity him and censure me.”

She soothed the impatience of the hand on her cheek, and, almost absently, musingly scrutinizing it without consciously seeing it, turned it over and slowly kissed the palm. The next moment she was drawn to her feet and into his arms.

“There, you see,” was her reproach as she disengaged herself.

“Why do you tell me all this about Dick?” Graham demanded another time, as they walked their horses side by side. “To keep me away? To protect yourself from me?”

Paula nodded, then quickly added, “No, not quite that. Because you know I don’t want to keep you away… too far. I say it because Dick is so much in my mind. For twelve years, you realize, he filled my mind. I say it because… because I think it, I suppose. Think! The situation! You are trespassing on a perfect marriage.”

“I know it,” he answered. “And I do not like the role of trespasser. It is your insistence, instead of going away with me, that I should trespass. And I can’t help it. I think away from you, try to force my thoughts elsewhere. I did half a chapter this morning, and I know it’s rotten and will have to be rewritten. For I can’t succeed in thinking away from you[469]. What is South America and its ethnology compared to you? And when I come near you my arms go about you before I know what I am doing. And, by God, you want them there, you want them there, you know it.”

Paula gathered her reins in signal for a gallop, but first, with a roguish smile, she acknowledged.

“I do want them there, dear trespasser.”

Paula yielded and fought at the same time.

“I love my husband – never forget that,” she would warn Graham, and within the minute be in his arms.

* * *

“There are only the three of us for once, thank goodness,” Paula cried, seizing Dick and Graham by the hands and leading them toward Dick’s favorite lounging couch in the big room. “Come, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings. Come, milords, and lordly perishers, and we will talk of Armageddon when the last sun goes down.”

She was in a merry mood, and with surprise Dick observed her light a cigarette. He could count on his fingers the cigarettes she had smoked in a dozen years, and then, only under a hostess’s provocation to give countenance[470] to some smoking woman guest. Later, when he mixed a highball for himself and Graham, she again surprised him by asking him to mix her a “wee” one.

“This is Scotch,” he warned.

“Oh, a very wee one,” she insisted, “and then we’ll be three good fellows together, winding up the world. And when you’ve got it all wound up and ready, I’ll sing you the song of the Valkyries.”

She took more part in the talk than usual, and strove to draw her husband out. Nor was Dick unaware of this, although he yielded and permitted himself to let go full tilt on the theme of the blond sun-perishers.

She is trying to make him compete – was Graham’s thought. But Paula scarcely thought of that phase of it, her pleasure consisting in the spectacle of two such splendid men who were hers. They talk of big game hunting, she mused once to herself; but did ever one small woman capture bigger game than this?

She sat cross-legged on the couch, where, by a turn of the head, she could view Graham lounging comfortably in the big chair, or Dick, on his elbow, sprawled among the cushions. And ever, as they talked, her eyes roved from one to the other; and, as they spoke of struggle and battle, always in the cold iron terms of realists, her own thoughts became so colored, until she could look coolly at Dick with no further urge of the pity that had intermittently ached her heart for days.