Winifred anticipated this honeymoon with calmness, but Eustace was too
much in love to be calm. He was, on the contrary, in a high state of
excitement, and of emotion, and the effort of making his ridiculous
speech had nearly sent him into hysterics. But he had now fully resolved
to continue in his whimsical course, and to play for ever the part of a
highly erratic genius, driven hither and thither by the weird impulses
of the moment. That he never had any impulses but such as were common to
most ordinary young men was a sad fact which he meant to most carefully
conceal from Winifred. He had made up his mind that she believed his
mask to be his face. She had, therefore, married the mask. To divorce
her violently from it might be fatal to their happiness. If he showed
the countenance God had given him, she might cry: “I don’t know you.
You are a stranger. You are like all the other men I didn’t choose to
marry.” His blood ran cold at the thought. No, he must keep it up. She
loved his fantasies because she believed them natural to him. She must
never suspect that they were not natural. So, as they travelled, he
planned the campaign of married life, as doubtless others, strange in
their new bondage, have planned. He gazed at Winifred, and thought,
“What is her notion of the ideal husband, I wonder?” She gazed at him,
and mused on his affection and his whimsicality, and what the two would
lead to in connection with her fate. And the old, scarlet-faced guard
smiled fatuously at them both through the window on which glared a
prominent “Engaged” as he had smiled on many another pair of fools--so
he silently dubbed them. Then they entered Bluebeard’s Chamber and
closed the door behind them.
Brighton was their destination. They meant to lose themselves in a
marine crowd.
They stayed there for a fortnight, and then returned to town, Eustace
more in love than ever.
But Winifred?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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