She had not dared to let him see all her despondency,
for his impatient and sanguine temper would have resented it. To
please him and satisfy his utmost demands was the one purpose of her
life. But the task he had imposed seemed to her, in these hours of
faintness, no less than terrible.
He entered, gay as usual, ready with tender words, pet names and
diminutives, the "little language" of one who was still a lover.
Seeing how things were with her, he sat down to look over an English
newspaper. Presently his attention strayed, he fell into reverie.
"Well," he exclaimed at length, rousing himself, "they have the news
by now."
She gave no answer.
"I can imagine how Mary will talk. 'Oh, nothing that Denzil does can
surprise me! Whoever expected him to marry in the ordinary way?' And
then they'll laugh, and shrug their shoulders, and hope I mayn't
have played the fool--good, charitable folks!"
Still she said nothing.
"Rather out of sorts to-day, Lily?"
"I wish we were going to stay here--never to go back to England."
"Live the rest of our lives in a Paris hotel!"
"No, no--in some quiet place--a home of our own."
"That wouldn't suit me, by any means. Paris is all very well for a
holiday, but I couldn't make a home here. There's no place like
England. Don't you ever think what an unspeakable blessing it is to
have been born in England? Every time I go abroad, I rejoice that I
am not as these foreigners.
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