Year: 1876

beauty, and makes sweet-scented ease
an 0ppression? What sort of Moslem
paradise would quiet the terrible fury
of moral repulsion and cowed resist.
ance which, like an eating pain inten-
styling into torture, concentrates the
mind in that poisonous misery! While
Gwendolen, throned 1on her cushions
at evening, and behOlding the glory of
sea and sky softening as if with bound.
less love around her, was hoping that
GrandcOurt in his march up and down
was not going to pause near her, not
going to look at her or speak to her,
some woman under a smoky sky,
obliged to consider the price Of eggs
in arranging her dinner, was listening
for the music Of a footstep that would
remove all risk from her fOretaste of
joy; some couple, bending, cheek by
cheek, over bit Of work done by the
one and delighted in by the other,
were reckoning the earnings that
would make them rich enough for a
holiday among the furze and heather.


Had Grandc0urt the least conception
of what was going on in the breast of
his wife he conceived that she did
not love him but was that necessary?
She was under his power, and he was
not accustomed too soothe himself, as
some cheerfully disposed persons are,
with the conviction that he was gen.
orally and justly beloved. But what
lay quite away from his conception
was, that she could have any special
repulsion for him personally. How
could she He himself knew what per-
sOnal repulsion Was-nobOdy better
his mind was much furnished with
sense of what brutes his fellow crea.
lures were both masculine and femi-
nine what odious familiarities they
had, what smirks, what modes Of flour.
ishing their handkerchiefs, what cos
costume, what lavender-water, what
bulging eyes, and what foolish notions
of making themselves agreeable by
remarks which were not wanted. In
this critical view of mankind there
was an affinity between him and Gwen
dolen before their marriage, and we
know that she had been attractingly
wrought upon by the refined negations
he presented to her. Hence he under
stood her repulsion for Lush.


But how was he to understand or
conceive her present repulsion for
Henleigh Grandcourt! Some men
bring themselves to believe, and not
merely maintain, the non-existence of
an external world few others be-
lieve themselves objects Of repulsion
to a woman without being told so in
plain language. But Grandcourt did
not belong to this eccentric body of
thinkers. He had all his life had rea-
son to take flattering view of his own
attractiVeness, and to place himself in
fine antithesis to the men who, he saw
at once, must be revolving to woman
of taste. He had no idea of a moral
repulsion, and could not have believed,
if he had been told it, that there may
be a resentment and disgust which
will gradually make beauty more de-
testible than ugliness, through exas-
peration at that outward virtue in
which hateful things can launt them
selves or find supercilious advantage.


How, then, could Grandcourt divine
what was going on in Gwendolen's
breast?


For their behavior to each other
scandaliZed no 0bserver-not even the
foreign maid warranted against sea-
sickness nor Grapdcourts own expe.
rienced valet still less the picturesque
crew, who regarded them as a model
couple in high life. Their companion
ship consisted chiefly in a well-bred
silence. Grandcourt had no humorous
observations at which Glendolen could
refuse to smile, no chitchat to make
small occasions of dispute. He was
perfectly polite in arranging an ad-
ditional garment over her when need
full, and in handing her any object
that he perceived her to need, and she
could not fall into the vulgarity of ac-
cepting or rejecting such politeness
rudely.


Grandcourt put up his telescope and
said, ''There's a plantation of sugar
canes at the foot of that rock; should
you like to look g


Gwendolen said, ssYes, please re.
membering that she must try and in
terest herself in sugar-canes as some
thing outside her personal affairs.
Then grandcourt would walk up and
down and smoke for long while,
pausing occasionally to point out sail
on the horizon, and at last would seat
himself and look at Gwendolen with
his narrow, immovable gaze, as if she
were part of the complete yacht; while
she, conscious of being looked at, was
exerting her ingenuity not to meet his
| eyes. At dinner he would remark that


the fruit was getting stale, and they


must put in somewhere for more or.


observing that she did not drink the


wine, he asked her if she liked any


other better. A lady was obliged tx


respond to these things suitably; and