[Beauchamp’s Career by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link bookBeauchamp’s Career CHAPTER IX 6/11
He talked of the beauty.
She fretted at it, and was her petulant self again in an epigrammatic note of discord. He let that pass. 'Last night you said "one night,"' he whispered.
'We will have another sail before we leave Venice.' 'One night, and in a little time one hour! and next one minute! and there's the end,' said Renee. Her tone alarmed him.
'Have you forgotten that you gave me your hand ?' 'I gave my hand to my friend.' 'You gave it to me for good.' 'No; I dared not; it is not mine.' 'It is mine,' said Beauchamp. Renee pointed to the dots and severed lines and isolated columns of the rising city, black over bright sea. 'Mine there as well as here,' said Beauchamp, and looked at her with the fiery zeal of eyes intent on minutest signs for a confirmation, to shake that sad negation of her face. 'Renee, you cannot break the pledge of the hand you gave me last night.' 'You tell me how weak a creature I am.' 'You are me, myself; more, better than me.
And say, would you not rather coast here and keep the city under water ?' She could not refrain from confessing that she would be glad never to land there. 'So, when you land, go straight to your father,' said Beauchamp, to whose conception it was a simple act resulting from the avowal. 'Oh! you torture me,' she cried.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|