[Vendetta by Marie Corelli]@TWC D-Link bookVendetta CHAPTER IX 17/23
A man, whose tall athletic figure was shown off to advantage by the yachting costume he wore, stood on deck, his arm thrown round the waist of a girl beside him.
We were but a minute or two passing the stately vessel, yet I saw plainly this loving group of two, and--I pitied the man! Why? He was English undoubtedly--the son of a country where the very soil is supposed to be odorous of virtue--therefore the woman beside him must be a perfect pearl of purity; an Englishman never makes a mistake in these things! Never? Are you sure? Ah, believe me, there is not much difference nowadays between women of opposite nations.
Once there was--I am willing to admit that possibility.
Once, from all accounts received, the English rose was the fitting emblem of the English woman, but now, since the world has grown so wise and made such progress in the art of running rapidly downhill, is even the aristocratic British peer quite easy in his mind regarding his fair peeress? Can he leave her to her own devices with safety? Are there not men, boastful too of their "blue blood," who are perhaps ready to stoop to the thief's trick of entering his house during his absence by means of private keys, and stealing away his wife's affections ?--and is not she, though a mother of three or four children, ready to receive with favor the mean robber of her husband's rights and honor? Read the London newspapers any day and you will find that once "moral" England is running a neck and neck race with other less hypocritical nations in pursuit of social vice.
The barriers that once existed are broken down; "professional beauties" are received in circles where their presence formerly would have been the signal for all respectable women instantly to retire; ladies of title are satisfied to caper on the boards of the theatrical stage, in costumes that display their shape as undisguisedly as possible to the eyes of the grinning public, or they sing in concert halls for the pleasure of showing themselves off, and actually accept the vulgar applause of unwashed crowds with a smile and a bow of gratitude! Ye gods! what has become of the superb pride of the old regime--the pride which disdained all ostentation and clung to honor more closely than life! What a striking sign of the times too, is this: let a woman taint her virtue BEFORE marriage, she is never forgiven--her sin is never forgotten; but let her do what she will when she has a husband's name to screen her, and society winks its eyes at her crimes.
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