A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories. William Dean Howells

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СКАЧАТЬ a piece of high-handed impudence!" cried Elmore. "Now, Celia, you see what these people are! Do you wonder that the Italians hate them?"

      "You've often said they only hate their system."

      "The Austrians are part of their system. He thinks he can take any liberty with us because he is an Austrian officer! Lily must not stir out of the house to-morrow."

      "She will be too tired to do so," said Mrs. Elmore.

      "And if he molests us further, I will appeal to the consul." Elmore began to walk up and down the room again.

      "Well, I don't know whether you could call it molesting, exactly," suggested Mrs. Elmore.

      "What do you mean, Celia? Do you suppose that she—she—encouraged this officer?"

      "Owen! It was all in the simplicity and innocence of her heart!"

      "Well, then, that she wishes to see him again?"

      "Certainly not! But that's no reason why we should be rude about it."

      "Rude about it? How? Is simply avoiding him rudeness? Is proposing to protect ourselves from his impertinence rudeness?"

      "No. And if you can't see the matter for yourself, Owen, I don't know how any one is to make you."

      "Why, Celia, one would think that you approved of this man's behavior—that you wished her to meet him again! You understand what the consequences would be if we received this officer. You know how all the Venetians would drop us, and we should have no acquaintances here outside of the army."

      "Who has asked you to receive him, Owen? And as for the Italians dropping us, that doesn't frighten me. But what could he do if he did meet her again? She needn't look at him. She says he is very intelligent, and that he has read a great many English books, though he doesn't speak it very well, and that he knows more about the war than she does. But of course she won't go out to-morrow. All that I hate is that we should seem to be frightened into staying at home."

      "She needn't stay in on his account. You said she would be too tired to go out."

      "I see by the scattering way you talk, Owen, that your mind isn't on the subject, and that you're anxious to get back to your work. I won't keep you."

      "Celia, Celia! Be fair, now!" cried Elmore. "You know very well that I'm only too deeply interested in this matter, and that I'm not likely to get back to my work to-night, at least. What is it you wish me to do?"

      Mrs. Elmore considered a while. "I don't wish you to do anything," she returned placably. "Of course, you're perfectly right in not choosing to let an acquaintance begun in that way go any further. We shouldn't at home, and we sha'n't here. But I don't wish you to think that Lily has been imprudent, under the circumstances. She doesn't know that it was anything out of the way, but she happened to do the best that any one could. Of course, it was very exciting and very romantic; girls like such things, and there's no reason they shouldn't. We must manage," added Mrs. Elmore, "so that she shall see that we appreciate her conduct, and trust in her entirely. I wouldn't do anything to wound her pride or self-confidence. I would rather send her out alone to-morrow."

      "Of course," said Elmore.

      "And if I were with her when she met him, I believe I should leave it entirely to her how to behave."

      "Well," said Elmore, "you're not likely to be put to the test. He'll hardly force his way into the house, and she isn't going out."

      "No," said Mrs. Elmore. She added, after a silence, "I'm trying to think whether I've ever seen him in Venice; he's here often. But there are so many tall officers with fair complexions and English beards. I should like to know how he looks! She said he was very aristocratic-looking."

      "Yes, it's a fine type," said Elmore. "They're all nobles, I believe."

      "But after all, they're no better looking than our boys, who come up out of nothing."

      "Ours are Americans," said Elmore.

      "And they are the best husbands, as I told Lily."

      Elmore looked at his wife, as she turned dreamily to leave the room; but since the conversation had taken this impersonal turn he would not say anything to change its complexion. A conjecture vaguely taking shape in his mind resolved itself to nothing again, and left him with only the ache of something unascertained.

V.

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      In the morning Lily came to breakfast as blooming as a rose. The sense of her simple, fresh, wholesome loveliness might have pierced even the indifference of a man to whom there was but one pretty woman in the world, and who had lived since their marriage as if his wife had absorbed her whole sex into herself: this deep, unconscious constancy was a noble trait in him, but it is not so rare in men as women would have us believe. For Elmore, Miss Mayhew merely pervaded the place in her finer way, as the flowers on the table did, as the sweet butter, the new eggs, and the morning's French bread did; he looked at her with a perfectly serene ignorance of her piquant face, her beautiful eyes and abundant hair, and her trim, straight figure. But his wife exulted in every particular of her charm, and was as generously glad of it as if it were her own; as women are when they are sure that the charm of others has no designs. The ladies twittered and laughed together, and as he was a man without small talk, he soon dropped out of the conversation into a reverie, from which he found himself presently extracted by a question from his wife.

      "We had better go in a gondola, hadn't we, Owen?" She seemed to be, as she put this, trying to look something into him. He, on his part, tried his best to make out her meaning, but failed.

      He simply asked, "Where? Are you going out?"

      "Yes. Lily has some shopping she must do. I think we can get it at Pazienti's in San Polo."

      Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. It seemed to him a sudden advance from the position she had taken the night before in regard to Miss Mayhew's not going out; but he could not understand his wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he opposed her going. He decided that she wished him for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he said, "I think you'd better walk, if Lily isn't too tired."

      "Oh, I'm not tired at all!" she cried.

      "I can go with you, in that direction, on my way to the library," he added.

      "Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, discontinuing her look, and leaving her husband with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed responsibility.

      "She can step into the Frari a moment, and see those tombs," he said. "I think it will amuse her."

      Lily broke into a laugh. "Is that the way you amuse yourselves in Venice?" she asked; and Mrs. Elmore hastened to reassure her.

      "That's the way Mr. Elmore amuses himself. You know his history makes every bit of the past fascinating to him."

      "Oh, yes, that history! Everybody is looking out for that," said Lily.

      "Is it possible," СКАЧАТЬ