The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-01-09

scenes arethe adherence of my life. Every
man loathes them, and | most OF all. In
our position no possible good can come
from mutual recrimination. Between
lovers such disputes may be the resurrec-
ton OF a buried love. But between peo-
pie who are bound together merely by
honor, interest and society, they can only
produce the most fatal arrangement. l
have wished honestly that you should be
happy, and if you are not so, it is as much
my misfortune as it is yours. IL NAV be
also my fault. l do not say that it is not
But it is the fault of temperament, and not
of will"
He waited for some answer from her,
but she said nothing.
She stood with one hand resting on the
marble column, and she might have been
made herself of marble, so still and so
cold she seemed.
He waited moment more looked at her
in hesitation, then with bow passed and
left her. He knew that he had said what
could not be effaced from her memory,
| and what must forever be like barrier of
ice between them. Yet if even at that
moment she had touched his heart or his
conscience in any way, If she had shown
anything of the warmth and tenderness
Which are the very life-blood of woman's
j
so far as his feelings could have been con-
| trolled to meet it. He would have been
ready to say to her: 1--WE are both sacri-
| feed to the mistaken laws of the world;
let us pity each other and bear with each
other, and be friends If we can be nothing
| more"
But she had said nothing; and she had
kept that attitude of coldness, of disdain,
of offense, which had in it neither invita-
| ton nor indulgence. She had no COM
| passion because she had no comprehen-
sion land she had been so wholly absorbed
in the intensity of her own pain that she
had had no I kaowledge that it might still
have been possible to save something from
this wreck of all her hopes. When women
see the treasure of their lives founder they
drown with it. They do not try to save
what they might.
Guilderoy did not seek TO explain or
to apologize. His conscience was stung,
and he was angered with himself for hav-
| ing been betrayed into such embarrass-
| ment. What idiots women were! always
| seeking to know things which made their
misery when known, never letting we'll
alone, never accepting the conventional
| untruths with which any well-bred man
! is careful to cover his errors, always
| breaking with rash steps the thin ice
which alone separates them from the bot
tomless waters of suspicion and jealousy!
He paced to and fro the west terrace
with anger and kind OF cOntrition in his
| thoughts. Whv would she ask those home
| questions? Why would she try to pene-
trate his very soul with the gaze of her
| great luminous, serious eyes? Why
could she not take all he gave her-his
| kindliness, his respect, his courtesy, his
! outward observance, his occasional en-
braces, and not endeavor 20 probe further
into the secrets of his inner life, and the
| mysteries of the male passions?
Good heavenst Had she not life full
| enough, brilliant enough, envied enough,
| to occupy and consent fter without her re-
quiring his erotic fidelity as though he
were some signing StrephOn to her maiden
! Cbioris? Why would women always make
themselves wretched by demanding the
impossible, and trying to enter the closed
| chambers of mems follies?
"And was really willing to endeavor
to be TO her what Vernon would have
wished" he thought with sense of injus-
tice done to himself
Why were women always like that?
Always rejecting the pearls you brought
them because you would not, or could not,
! give them a roc's egg!
Marriage is such totally different
thing to what she thinks it" he SAID to
! himself. ut is a comm Unity of interests;
a union of externals; a method of continu-
ing the race and of consolidating prop
erty; it is not lifelong worship of Eros.
with an eternal song OF 'Evoe Hymen p"
He was incensed, and nursed his fiction
Of injustice to himself, not to look closer
at the injustice to her of which his con-
science whispered.
4 IL tI., - 4
most the same day of the month, as that
on which he had first spoken 10 his sister
of his intention to marry John Yer
mons daughter. Good heavens Why
had he given away liberty and peace and
| independence of action only because a
child had a lovely face, like picture by
| Romney, and because ho had had vague
| impressions that he wished his own son
to reign after him at Ladysrood Into
| what irrevocable Imprisonment had not
| his senses and his sentimentality hurried
| him.
But who could ever have suppose ed that
a woman so young, and reared In such
rural seclusion, would have had so much
penetration, so much prescience, so much
! worldly wisdom, and such an obstinate
refusal to be deceived.
II have always been most careful to
| show her every outward respect" he
thought; and it seemed to him that she
was unreasonable, and he himself harshly
treated. He would always have liked
her, always have felt affection for her, if
she had only been more facile, more
plant, more easily nodded to what he
required.
What could it matter to her if his
fancies went elsewhere! He could not
see that it really mattered anything.
ii there were any very great scandal, II
| he left her openly for any one, If he in
suited her in public by admiration for
some actress or some adventures, then he
could have understood that she would
have felt wronged. and the world would
have been with her. But as it was, as he
had always been careful to do none of
these things he could not admit to him
self that she had any injury at all.
He had remained beside her entirely
out of sympathy and good feeling; he had
honestly desired to regulate their future
lives to be in accord and outward harmo-
ny, if in no deeper tenderness, and his
only reward had been that she had asked
him a direct and intolerahle question
which he had been too honest a gentle
man to answer with lie.
He was profoundly angered; the more
profoundly because his inner conscious
ness was not blameless. If he had loved