[The Amazing Marriage by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link bookThe Amazing Marriage CHAPTER XIV 2/4
He quenched a smirk and stood to take orders; clad in a flat blue cap, a brown overcoat, and knee-breeches, as the temporary bustle of his legs had revealed. Fleet-wood heard the young lady say: 'I would choose, if you please, to sit beside you.' He gave a nod of enforced assent, glancing at the vacated box. The man inquired: 'A knee and a back for the lady to mount up, my lord ?' 'In!' was the smart command to him; and he popped in with the agility of his popping out. Then Carinthia made reverence to the grey lean figure of her uncle and kissed Mrs.Carthew.She needed no help to mount the coach.
Fleetwood's arm was rigidly extended, and he did not visibly wince when this foreign girl sprang to the first hand-grip on the coach and said: 'No, my husband, I can do it'; unaided,' was implied. Her stride from the axle of the wheel to the step higher would have been a graceful spectacle on Alpine crags. Fleetwood swallowed that, too, though it conjured up a mocking recollection of the Baden woods, and an astonished wild donkey preparing himself for his harness.
A sour relish of the irony in his present position sharpened him to devilish enjoyment of it, as the finest form of loathing: on the principle that if we find ourselves consigned to the nether halls, we do well to dance drunkenly.
He had cried for Romance--here it was! He raised his hat to Mrs.Carthew and to Lord Levellier.
Previous to the ceremony, the two noblemen had interchanged the short speech of mannered duellists punctiliously courteous in the opening act.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|