Ancestors: A NovelAtherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
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Ancestors: A Novel
Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
British -- United States -- Fiction; California -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Love stories; Political fiction
"I suppose that money enters into all things. It certainly ruled my
destiny. The fortnight that ensued I never think of if I can help it. He
was desperately bored with Munich, but too polite to leave me alone. I
saw him with the woman three or four times. She was an Austrian who did
not visit the Baroness L., and she was staying at his hotel. There was
no doubt that he still wished to marry me, but I was in even less doubt
that his ruined nature would yield more and more to this sort of
fascination when my novelty had worn thin. Before my money arrived my
mind was made up. I dared not trust myself to the seduction of his
manner and voice--he was a past-master in the art of making love. I
wrote him that I would not marry a man I could not trust, and fled to
Vienna, telling my Munich bankers to keep my letters until I sent for
them. For two weeks I travelled madly through Austria and Hungary. Never
for a moment was I free of torments. Never before had I actually
comprehended what love meant. I hardly ate or slept. I arrived at a
place only to leave it. The hotel-keepers thought I was the American
tourist overtaken by that final madness they had always anticipated.
When the fortnight finished I looked back upon an eternity in purgatory.
I surrendered; at least he loved me in his way. He had never ceased to
urge our marriage. Who could say that I might not be fascinating enough
to hold him? It was worth the trial, and I despised myself for laying
down my arms without a struggle.
"I took the Oriental express from Budapest, but during the journey,
swift as it was, I underwent certain reactions. I knew that he must have
left Munich, that all I could do was to take a letter to his bank and
ask that it be forwarded. I wrote the letter as soon as I arrived, but
decided to post it; my pride revolted at facing the sharp eye of the
person that handled the letters of credit. I had gone to the bank with
Prestage more than once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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