The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton (phonics reader .txt) 📗

half hour before dinner, he received a deeper impression of the general insecurity. Silverton was in a mood of Titanic pessimism. How anyone could come to such a damned hole as the Riviera⁠—anyone with a grain of imagination⁠—with the whole Mediterranean to choose from: but then, if one’s estimate of a place depended on the way they broiled a spring chicken! Gad! what a study might be made of the tyranny of the stomach⁠—the way a sluggish liver or insufficient gastric juices might affect the whole course of the universe, overshadow everything in reach⁠—chronic dyspepsia ought to be among the “statutory causes”; a woman’s life might be ruined by a man’s inability to digest fresh bread. Grotesque? Yes⁠—and tragic⁠—like most absurdities. There’s nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.⁠ ⁠… Where was he? Oh⁠—the reason they chucked Sicily and rushed back? Well⁠—partly, no doubt, Miss Bart’s desire to get back to bridge and smartness. Dead as a stone to art and poetry⁠—the light never was on sea or land for her! And of course she persuaded Dorset that the Italian food was bad for him. Oh, she could make him believe anything⁠—anything! Mrs. Dorset was aware of it⁠—oh, perfectly: nothing she didn’t see! But she could hold her tongue⁠—she’d had to, often enough. Miss Bart was an intimate friend⁠—she wouldn’t hear a word against her. Only it hurts a woman’s pride⁠—there are some things one doesn’t get used to⁠ ⁠… All this in confidence, of course? Ah⁠—and there were the ladies signalling from the balcony of the hotel.⁠ ⁠… He plunged across the Promenade, leaving Selden to a meditative cigar.

The conclusions it led him to were fortified, later in the evening, by some of those faint corroborative hints that generate a light of their own in the dusk of a doubting mind. Selden, stumbling on a chance acquaintance, had dined with him, and adjourned, still in his company, to the brightly lit Promenade, where a line of crowded stands commanded the glittering darkness of the waters. The night was soft and persuasive. Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats. Down the lantern-hung Promenade, snatches of band-music floated above the hum of the crowd and the soft tossing of boughs in dusky gardens; and between these gardens and the backs of the stands there flowed a stream of people in whom the vociferous carnival mood seemed tempered by the growing languor of the season.

Selden and his companion, unable to get seats on one of the stands facing the bay, had wandered for a while with the throng, and then found a point of vantage on a high garden-parapet above the Promenade. Thence they caught but a triangular glimpse of the water, and of the flashing play of boats across its surface; but the crowd in the street was under their immediate view, and seemed to Selden, on the whole, of more interest than the show itself. After a while, however, he wearied of his perch and, dropping alone to the pavement, pushed his way to the first corner and turned into the moonlit silence of a side street. Long garden-walls overhung by trees made a dark boundary to the pavement; an empty cab trailed along the deserted thoroughfare, and presently Selden saw two persons emerge from the opposite shadows, signal to the cab, and drive off in it toward the centre of the town. The moonlight touched them as they paused to enter the carriage, and he recognized Mrs. Dorset and young Silverton.

Beneath the nearest lamppost he glanced at his watch and saw that the time was close on eleven. He took another cross street, and without breasting the throng on the Promenade, made his way to the fashionable club which overlooks that thoroughfare. Here, amid the blaze of crowded baccarat tables, he caught sight of Lord Hubert Dacey, seated with his habitual worn smile behind a rapidly dwindling heap of gold. The heap being in due course wiped out, Lord Hubert rose with a shrug, and joining Selden, adjourned with him to the deserted terrace of the club. It was now past midnight, and the throng on the stands was dispersing, while the long trails of red-lit boats scattered and faded beneath a sky repossessed by the tranquil splendour of the moon.

Lord Hubert looked at his watch. “By Jove, I promised to join the Duchess for supper at the London House; but it’s past twelve, and I suppose they’ve all scattered. The fact is, I lost them in the crowd soon after dinner, and took refuge here, for my sins. They had seats on one of the stands, but of course they couldn’t stop quiet: the Duchess never can. She and Miss Bart went off in quest of what they call adventures⁠—gad, it ain’t their fault if they don’t have some queer ones!” He added tentatively, after pausing to grope for a cigarette: “Miss Bart’s an old friend of yours, I believe? So she told me.⁠—Ah, thanks⁠—I don’t seem to have one left.” He lit Selden’s proffered cigarette, and continued, in his high-pitched drawling tone: “None of my business, of course, but I didn’t introduce her to the Duchess. Charming woman, the Duchess, you understand; and a very good friend of mine; but rather a liberal education.”

Selden received this in silence, and after a few puffs Lord Hubert broke out again: “Sort of thing one can’t communicate to the young lady⁠—though young ladies nowadays are so competent to judge for themselves; but in this case⁠—I’m an old friend too, you know⁠ ⁠… and there seemed no one else to speak to. The whole situation’s a little mixed, as I see it⁠—but there used to be an aunt somewhere, a diffuse and innocent person, who was great at bridging over chasms she didn’t see⁠ ⁠…