What more can I say? Surely it is all plain
enough!"
Eve sighed. It seemed to her husband that she was on the whole
disappointed, and he felt that, while he was about it, he might have
given himself a freer hand, and made himself emerge, not only
without a stain upon his character--the expression occurred to him
with a kind of familiar mockery--but with beaten drums and flying
colours.
He reflected that this was another example of the folly of
attempting to economize. At the same time he was gently thrilled by
what he owned to himself was a not ignoble emotion: that sigh seemed
to speak so naturally and pathetically of disillusionment, it was
such a simple little confession of a damaged ideal. It did not occur
to him to suspect that the character of which his wife had formed
too proudly high an estimate was his own.
"Don't you think you might trust me?" he said presently in a milder,
almost paternal tone, magnanimously prepared for a charming display
of penitence, which it would be his duty rather to encourage than to
deprecate.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353