Lindora was tired of always going to the same place, sick and tired;
and, as far as she could see, all those mountain-places were the same
places. She could get no good of the air if she bored herself; the nice
people did not go to hotels so much now, anyway, and the children were
dreadful, no fit associates for the teethers, who had long ceased to
teethe but needed a summer outing as much as ever. A series of seasons
followed when the married pair did not know where to go, in the person
of the partner who represented them, and they had each spring a
controversy vividly resembling a quarrel, but which was really not a
quarrel, because the Dear knew that if it were not for the children
Lindora would only be too glad never to leave their own house winter or
summer, but just to stick there, year out and year in. Then, at least,
she could look a little after Florindo, who had lived so much at the
club that he had fairly forgotten he _had_ a wife and children. The
trouble was all with Florindo, anyway; he cared more for his business
than his family, much; if he did not, he could have managed somehow to
spend the summers with them. Other men did it, and ran down once a
month, or once a fortnight, to put things in shape, and then came back.
Sleeping on a midnight view of her hard case, Lindora woke one morning
with an inspiration; it might not be too much to call it a revelation.
She wondered at herself, she was ashamed of herself, for not having
thought of it before. Europe, of course, was the only solution. Once in
Europe, you need not worry about where to go, for you could go anywhere.
Europe was everywhere, and you had your choice of the Swiss mountains,
where every breath made another person of you, or the Italian lakes with
their glorious scenery, or the English lakes with their literary
associations, or Scheveningen and all Holland, or Etretat, or Ostend, or
any of those thousands of German baths where you could get over whatever
you had, and the children could pick up languages with tutors, and the
life was so amusing. Going to Europe was excuse enough in itself for
Florindo to leave his business, and, if he could not be gone more than
one summer, he could place her and the children out there till their
health and education were completed, and they could all return home
when it was time for the girls to think of coming out and the boys of
going to college.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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