Snob that I was, I dropped her--"like a 'ot potato" for fear of her
dropping me.
Besides which I had on my conscience a guilty, snobby feeling that in
merely external charms at least these fine people were more to my taste
than the charmed circle of my kind old friends the Lintots, however
inferior they might be to these (for all that I knew) in sterling
qualities of the heart and head--just as I found the outer aspect of
Park Lane and Piccadilly more attractive than that of Pentonville,
though possibly the latter may have been the more wholesome for such as
I to live in.
But people who can get Mario and Grisi to come and sing for them (and
the Duchess of Towers to come and listen); people whose walls are
covered with beautiful pictures; people for whom the smooth and
harmonious ordering of all the little external things of social life has
become a habit and a profession--such people are not to be dropped
without a pang.
So with a pang I went back to my usual round as though nothing had
happened; but night and day the face of the Duchess of Towers was ever
present to me, like a fixed idea that dominates a life.
* * * * *
On reading and rereading these past pages, I find that I have been
unpardonably egotistic, unconscionably prolix and diffuse; and with such
small beer to chronicle!
And yet I feel that if I strike out this, I must also strike out that;
which would lead to my striking out all, in sheer discouragement; and I
have a tale to tell which is more than worth the telling!
Once having got into the way of it, I suppose, I must have found the
temptation to talk about myself irresistible.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171