The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ
- Author: Henry James
Book online «The Wings of the Dove Henry James (android based ebook reader TXT) đ». Author Henry James
âAre you sure youâve got it right?â the girl smiled. âI thought rather that affection was supposed to be blind.â
âBlind to faults, not to beauties,â Lord Mark promptly returned.
âAnd are my extremely private worries, my entirely domestic complications, which Iâm ashamed to have given you a glimpse ofâ âare they beauties?â
âYes, for those who care for youâ âas everyone does. Everything about you is a beauty. Besides which I donât believe,â he declared, âin the seriousness of what you tell me. Itâs too absurd you should have any trouble about which something canât be done. If you canât get the right thing, who can, in all the world, I should like to know? Youâre the first young woman of your time. I mean what I say.â He looked, to do him justice, quite as if he did; not ardent, but clearâ âsimply so competent, in such a position, to compare, that his quiet assertion had the force not so much perhaps of a tribute as of a warrant. âWeâre all in love with you. Iâll put it that way, dropping any claim of my own, if you can bear it better. I speak as one of the lot. You werenât born simply to torment usâ âyou were born to make us happy. Therefore you must listen to us.â
She shook her head with her slowness, but this time with all her mildness. âNo, I mustnât listen to youâ âthatâs just what I mustnât do. The reason is, please, that it simply kills me. I must be as attached to you as you will, since you give that lovely account of yourselves. I give you in return the fullest possible belief of what it would beâ ââ And she pulled up a little. âI give and give and giveâ âthere you are; stick to me as close as you like and see if I donât. Only I canât listen or receive or acceptâ âI canât agree. I canât make a bargain. I canât really. You must believe that from me. Itâs all Iâve wanted to say to you, and why should it spoil anything?â
He let her question fallâ âthough clearly, it might have seemed, because, for reasons or for none, there was so much that was spoiled. âYou want somebody of your own.â He came back, whether in good faith or in bad, to that; and it made her repeat her headshake. He kept it up as if his faith were of the best. âYou want somebody, you want somebody.â
She was to wonder afterwards if she hadnât been at this juncture on the point of saying something emphatic and vulgarâ ââWell, I donât at all events want you!â What somehow happened, nevertheless, the pity of it being greater than the irritationâ âthe sadness, to her vivid sense, of his being so painfully astray, wandering in a desert in which there was nothing to nourish himâ âwas that his error amounted to positive wrongdoing. She was moreover so acquainted with quite another sphere of usefulness for him that her having suffered him to insist almost convicted her of indelicacy. Why hadnât she stopped him off with her first impression of his purpose? She could do so now only by the allusion she had been wishing not to make. âDo you know I donât think youâre doing very right?â âand as a thing quite apart, I mean, from my listening to you. Thatâs not right eitherâ âexcept that Iâm not listening. You oughtnât to have come to Venice to see meâ âand in fact youâve not come, and you mustnât behave as if you had. Youâve much older friends than I, and ever so much better. Really, if youâve come at all, you can only have comeâ âproperly, and if I may say so honourablyâ âfor the best friend, as I believe her to be, that you have in the world.â
When once she had said it he took it, oddly enough, as if he had been more or less expecting it. Still, he looked at her very hard, and they had a moment of this during which neither pronounced a name, each apparently determined that the other should. It was Millyâs fine coercion, in the event, that was the stronger. âMiss Croy?â Lord Mark asked.
It might have been difficult to make out that she smiled.
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