"I shall do right, of course. Bring the man you have spoken of
to-morrow afternoon, and I also will have here an expert of the same
kind. I will pay you whatever they decide is a proper sum."
"That will satisfy me."
"I am sorry affairs have come to this point between us. I tried to be
kind to you. I think you have been very ungrateful."
"You were kind only to yourself. You never were a favourite in St.
Penfer. Other ladies did not often call upon you. In me you had a
companionship which you could control, you had your sewing done for
next to nothing, you had the news of the town brought to you. You
played upon my restless disposition, my love of fine clothing, my
ambition to be some one greater than Denas Penelles, and as soon as
good fortune came to you and you had everything you desired, you found
me a bore, a claimant on your sense of justice which you did not like
to meet. Understand that the fact of wearing silk and jewelry does not
give you the right to take up an immortal soul and play with it or
cast it aside as you find it convenient. I owe you the deepest grudge.
You made me dissatisfied with my own life, you showed me the pleasant
vistas of a different life, and when I hoped to enter with you, I
found myself outside and the door shut in my face. You have always
tried to make Roland dissatisfied with me. You insinuated, you
deplored, in every letter to him. You stabbed while you pretended to
kiss me. I found you out long ago. Everyone finds you out. You never
had a friend. You never will have one."
She spoke with that pitiless scorn which is the language of suppressed
passion. Elizabeth only lifted her eyebrows and turned away from her.
And Denasia knew that she had made a mistake, and yet she did not
regret it. There are times when it is a relief to be angry, whether we
do well to be so or not; when to lose the temper is better than to
keep it. Of course there are great and beautiful souls with whom
nothing turns to bitterness, but the soul of Denasia was not one of
these. It had been born ready to feel and ready to speak, and regarded
it as something of a virtue to do so.
She left Elizabeth's house in a very unhappy mood, and at a rapid walk
proceeded to her lodging in Bloomsbury. She would have felt the
confinement of a cab to be intolerable, but it was a relief to set her
personality against the friction of a million of encompassing wills.
And in a short time she succumbed to that condition of electricity
which they evolve, and permitted herself to be moved by it without
considering her steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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