FullReads

‘That’s the special case. Look how it came to pass. Months ago I knew I was drifting into dangerous relations with that girl. Unfortunately I am not a rascal: I can’t think of girls as playthings; a fatal conscientiousness in an unmarried man of no means. Day after day we grew more familiar. She used to come up and ask me if I wanted anything; and of course I knew that she began to come more often than necessary. When she laid a meal for me, we talked–half an hour at a time. The mother, doubtless, looked on with approval; Emma had to find a husband, and why not me as well as another? They knew I was a soft creature–that I never made a row about anything–was grateful for anything that looked like kindness–and so on. Just the kind of man to be captured. But no–I don’t want to make out that I am their victim; that’s a feeble excuse, and a worthless one. The average man would either have treated the girl as a servant, and so kept her at her distance, or else he would have alarmed her by behaviour which suggested anything you like but marriage. As for me, I hadn’t the common-sense to take either of these courses. I made a friend of the girl; talked to her more and more confidentially; and at last–fatal moment–told her my history. Yes, I was ass enough to tell that girl the whole story of my life. Can you conceive such folly?

‘Yet the easiest thing in the world to understand. We were alone in the house one evening. After trying to work for about an hour I gave it up. I knew that the mother was out, and I heard Emma moving downstairs. I was lonely and dispirited–wanted to talk–to talk about myself to some one who would give a kind ear. So I went down, and made some excuse for beginning a conversation in the parlour. It lasted a couple of hours; we were still talking when the mother came back. I didn’t persuade myself that I cared for Emma, even then. Her vulgarisms of speech and feeling jarred upon me. But she was feminine; she spoke and looked gently, with sympathy. I enjoyed that evening–and you must bear in mind what I have told you before, that I stand in awe of refined women. I am their equal, I know; I can talk with them; their society is an exquisite delight to me;–but when it comes to thinking of intimacy with one of them–! Perhaps it is my long years of squalid existence. Perhaps I have come to regard myself as doomed to life on a lower level. I find it an impossible thing to imagine myself offering marriage–making love–to a girl such as those I meet in the big houses.’

‘You will outgrow that,’ said Munden.

‘Yes, yes,–I hope and believe so. And wouldn’t it be criminal to deny myself even the chance, now that I have money? All to-day I have been tortured like a soul that beholds its salvation lost by a moment’s weakness of the flesh. You can imagine what my suffering has been; it drove me into sheer lying. I had resolved to deny utterly that I had asked Emma to marry me–to deny it with a savage boldness, and take the consequences.’

‘A most rational resolve, my dear fellow. Pray stick to it. But you haven’t told me yet how the dizzy culmination of your madness was reached. You say that you proposed last night?‘

‘Yes–and simply for the pleasure of telling Emma, when she had accepted me, that I had eighty thousand pounds! You can’t understand that? I suppose the change of fortune has made me a little light-headed; I have been going about with a sense of exaltation which has prompted me to endless follies. I have felt a desire to be kind to people–to bestow happiness–to share my joy with others. If I had some of the doctor’s money in my pocket, I should have given away five-pound notes.’