Part 37 (1/2)
”You should have married an American husband,” he said to her, ”a man ould have idolized you, not cared whether you developed or not A duchess isn't far enough up An A to hiretfully, ”you've been forced to develop, whether or not you wanted to, to grow finer and freer, to go farther on, to becoressed and civilized, after years of education, experience and suffering, and, my poor child, here you are all alone”
She cried out, ”Oh, Mr Bulstrode,” with a little gasp
”Oh, no, no,” he softly ejaculated, ”it is not fair! You're terribly wasted, and you've been, as you too well know, terribly betrayed”
But here he felt her hand on his arrasp She shook the aro on,” she said deeply ”I tell you not to go on” After a few seconds, in which he heard the fire and the slow bubbling of the gently boiling water and the cooing of the doves without, under the eaves, the duchess said: ”Listen tonow”
Her companion reflected to hin the Duke; that's a foregone conclusion”
The duchess clasped her hands round her knee and raised her face to hioist as nasty as a feenerally selfish, but we specialize, and each one of us has the faculty of getting up soin to believe At any rate, when Ione until a very little tio I suppose I must in a way have more or less ornamented my position, as the papers say I did have two children as well, and in that way fulfilled my duty as a Westboro' But really and truly, I have never in the least been a wife, and very little of a mother I was as silly and vain as could be, and I never for a moment valued my husband I wasn't indifferent to my children, but I was absorbed by my worldly life, and when my little boys were taken ill and died, I was on a dahabeah on the Nile, and I don't think that Cecil ever forgave us for being so far away”
She re down at her hands, and when she lifted her face Bulstrode saw that she had wept
”That,” she went on, ”broke the ice round my heart, when I caly, ”There, there, ed hiain But at that time when I turned to find my husband, I discovered that I had no power over him, and I realized that for years I had not possessed his love I suppose you'll tell me that it is unusual for a woman to see so clearly as this Perhaps it is At any rate, just because I did so clearly, I forgave him when he came to me last year, at Cannes”
”You onderful!” he repeated again, ”perfectly noble, and, as I said before, Westboro' did not deserve you”
She did not here, as she had done before, catch him up; on the contrary, after a few moments, she asked hi us both, to do?”
He was distinctly disappointed that she should have put the question to hiave her time to withdraw it as he asked tentatively: ”You really feel that you must ask me, duchess?”
”Tell me, at all events”
”You are quite sure that you could not go back to your husband?”
After a little pause, she lingeringly said:
”Yes, quite sure You must know that he will not be the first to break the ice now” Then she pushed: ”You would advisemy papers for divorce?”
Held in this way pitilessly for a direct challenge, he ently:
”Is there nothing that speaks for Westboro' ly than anything which you in all your pride feel?”
The duchess assented that there ith a movement of her lips; she put her hands over her face and so sat quietly for a few ain to her visitor, her words were irrelevant When soretted his absence in London and begged him to come and see her as soon as he returned
”Come,” she said, ”at least to see whether I aone away”
As Bulstrode stood in the doorway she asked him: ”I understand there are a lot of people at the castle for Christ them will be Mrs Falconer? Isn't it so? Is she really so very lovely?”
”It's a different type of loveliness from yours,” Bulstrode returned