I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I
feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering
any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the
apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant,
and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I
shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts
of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you
try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of
this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week,
the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week
after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following.
I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the
envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady
friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my
unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile
to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without
seeking, have ensnared their _rara avis_ to be my legal bondsman. Rather a
contradiction in terms!
The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old
love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet
has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my
girlish dreams.
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