The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the board.

      "Nine!" she said.

      James turned to look at his uncle, noting a little contemptuously the change of his costume, and its extravagant juvenility.

      "A lot of stuff and nonsense, isn't it?"

      "D'you think so?" asked James, wearily. "We've been taking it very seriously."

      "You're a set of old fogies down here. You want a man of the world to set things right."

      "Ah, well, you're a man of the world, Uncle William," replied James, smiling.

      The dice-box rattled obtrusively as Colonel Parsons and his wife played on with elaborate unconcern of the conversation.

      "A gentleman doesn't jilt a girl when he's been engaged to her for five years."

      James squared himself to answer Major Forsyth. The interview with Mrs. Jackson in the morning had left him extremely irritated. He was resolved to say now all he had to say and have done with it, hoping that a complete explanation would relieve the tension between his people and himself.

      "It is with the greatest sorrow that I broke off my engagement with Mary Clibborn. It seemed to me the only honest thing to do since I no longer loved her. I can imagine nothing in the world so horrible as a loveless marriage."

      "Of course, it's unfortunate; but the first thing is to keep one's word."

      "No," answered James, "that is prejudice. There are many more important things."

      Colonel Parsons stopped the pretence of his game.

      "Do you know that Mary is breaking her heart?" he asked in a low voice.

      "I'm afraid she's suffering very much. I don't see how I can help it."

      "Leave this to me, Richmond," interrupted the Major, impatiently. "You'll make a mess of it."

      But Colonel Parsons took no notice.

      "She looked forward with all her heart to marrying you. She's very unhappy at home, and her only consolation was the hope that you would soon take her away."

      "Am I managing this or are you, Richmond? I'm a man of the world."

      "If I married a woman I did not care for because she was rich, you would say I had dishonoured myself. The discredit would not be in her wealth, but in my lack of love."

      "That's not the same thing," replied Major Forsyth. "You gave your word, and now you take it back."

      "I promised to do a thing over which I had no control. When I was a boy, before I had seen anything of the world, before I had ever known a woman besides my mother, I promised to love Mary Clibborn all my life. Oh, it was cruel to let me be engaged to her! You blame me; don't you think all of you are a little to blame as well?"

      "What could we have done?"

      "Why didn't you tell me not to be hasty? Why didn't you say that I was too young to become engaged?"

      "We thought it would steady you."

      "But a young man doesn't want to be steadied. Let him see life and taste all it has to offer. It is wicked to put fetters on his wrists before ever he has seen anything worth taking. What is the virtue that exists only because temptation is impossible!"

      "I can't understand you, Jamie," said Mrs. Parsons, sadly. "You talk so differently from when you were a boy."

      "Did you expect me to remain all my life an ignorant child. You've never given me any freedom. You've hemmed me in with every imaginable barrier. You've put me on a leading-string, and thanked God that I did not stray."

      "We tried to bring you up like a good man, and a true Christian."

      "If I'm not a hopeless prig, it's only by miracle."

      "James, that's not the way to talk to your mother," said Major Forsyth.

      "Oh, mother, I'm sorry; I don't want to be unkind to you. But we must talk things out freely; we've lived in a hot-house too long."

      "I don't know what you mean. You became engaged to Mary of your own free will; we did nothing to hinder it, nothing to bring it about. But I confess we were heartily thankful, thinking that no influence could be better for you than the love of a pure, sweet English girl."

      "It would have been kinder and wiser if you had forbidden it."

      "We could not have taken the responsibility of crossing your affections."

      "Mrs. Clibborn did."

      "Could you expect us to be guided by her?"

      "She was the only one who showed the least common sense."

      "How you have changed, Jamie!"

      "I would have obeyed you if you had told me I was too young to become engaged. After all, you are more responsible than I am. I was a child. It was cruel to let me bind myself."

      "I never thought you would speak to us like that."

      "All that's ancient history," said Major Forsyth, with what he flattered himself was a very good assumption of jocularity. It was his idea to treat the matter lightly, as a man of the world naturally would. But his interruption was unnoticed.

      "We acted for the best. You know that we have always had your interests at heart."

      James did not speak, for his only answer would have been bitter. Throughout, they had been unwilling to let him live his own life, but desirous rather that he should live theirs. They loved him tyrannically, on the condition that he should conform to all their prejudices. Though full of affectionate kindness, they wished him always to dance to their piping--a marionette of which they pulled the strings.

      "What would you have me do?"

      "Keep your word, James," answered his father.

      "I can't, I can't! I don't understand how you can wish me to marry Mary Clibborn when I don't love her. _That_ seems to me dishonourable."

      "It would be nothing worse than a _mariage de convenance_," said Uncle William. "Many people marry in that sort of way, and are perfectly happy."

      "I couldn't," said James. "That seems to me nothing better than prostitution. It is no worse for a street-walker to sell her body to any that care to buy."

      "James, remember your mother is present."

      "For God's sake, let us speak plainly. You must know what life is. One can do no good by shutting one's eyes to everything that doesn't square with a shoddy, false ideal. On one side I must break my word, on the other I must prostitute myself. There is no middle way. You live here surrounded by all sorts СКАЧАТЬ