ance, and took time to ponder them gently before she answered in a voice touched by emotion: "You are very generous-very unselfish; but when you fix a l
y should i
gainst every hour since he was born!-I don't mean, you know," she added, as Durham, with bent head, continued to offer the silent fixity of his attention, "I don't mean the special personal influence-except inasmuch as it represents something wider, more general, something that encloses and circulates through the whole world in which he belongs. That is what I meant when I said you could never understand! There is nothing in your experience-in any American experience-to correspond with that far-reaching family organization, which is itself a part of the larger system, and which encloses a young man of my son's position in a network of accepted prejudices and opinions. Everything is prepared in advance-his political and religious convictions, his judgments of people, his sense of honour, his ideas of women, his whole view of
screet modulations; and Durham felt himself tingling with the transmitted force of her resolve. Whatever shock her words b
it in that way, because if I were in your place I believe I should feel just as you do about it. As long as there was a fighting chance I should want to keep hold of my half, no matter how much the struggle cost me. And one reason why I understand your feeling about your boy is that I have the same feeling about you:
and saw that hers met them thr
his said to me! But I could
tinction. "That doesn't mean t
uch cond
of the case. As far as material circumstances go, I have worked long enough and successfully enough to take my ease and take it where I choose. I mention that because the life I offe
ed gaze to his. "My direct answer then is: if
vely. "But you will be-when
instinctive shrinking back of her whole person
o dislike
like anything that would do away with the past-o
with the patience of a wooer on the
e; I don't know;
ming here with me today-and above all your going with me just
thing seem easy and natural. She took me back into that clea
what mysteries, a
a faint shiver. "I am afra
ou've no one to turn to. I'll clear the
llenge at the great city which had come to typify
ly! But you don't kno
w wh
ifficu
udes yours. You know Americans are great hands at getting over difficulties." He drew hi
d: "The divorce, to begin with
her husband's individual claim, were to be considered; and the use of the plural
f your divorce! I've consulted-of
h, so have I. The divorce would be easy enough t
h can they p
how they will do things is one
justice in a-comparatively-civilized country? You've told me yourself that Monsieur de Malrive is the least likely to give you trouble; and t
mysterious solidarity that you can't understand. One doesn't know how far they may reach, or in h
urham's buoyancy began to flag, but h
ernatural powers; do you think it's to people of
otest. "Oh, they're not wantonly wicke
ant me to leave you alone? Was that
esitation, and lifting her head she turned on him a look in which, but for its und
eemed to vanish; the problems grew as trivial to me as they are to you. And I wanted them to remain so a little longer; I wanted to put off going back to them. But it was of no use-they were waiting for me here. They are over there now in
expressed an actual fact and she felt herself bodily dtically; and as she paused, wavering a little under the shock of his
action, she might decide to apply for a divorce. Short of a positive assurance on this point, she made it clear that she would never move in the matter; there must be no scandal, no retentissement, nothing which her boy, necessarily brought up in the French tradition of scrupulously preserved appearances, could afterward regard as the fainte
of distrust-"but surely you have told me that your husband's sister-what is her name? Madame de
een on my side. She dislikes her brot
else ask her? Wh
mine. But in a case like this they would be all
s sees the reasonableness of what you ask; suppose, at any rate, she sees the
her real opinion from them. At least I should never know if it was her re
se to soothe her, and the practical instinct t
an't find out what Madame de Treymes
r doorstep to lay her hand in his before she touched the bell, she added wit