A little breeze, blowing cool across London, ruffled her hair. Patting a
scarcely displaced curl, she thought: "He kissed these fingers of mine.
Another time he will kiss me on the lips. My lips shall answer his
kisses."
And all those three days and nights, thought went no further. For the
moment it sufficed to know one's self adored and adoring, to dream the
impossible, to vision oneself untrammeled as Mollie, a virgin in bridal
white standing meek-eyed before one's chosen.
2
But Hyde Park, of a crowded Sunday morning, is no place for dreams:
rather is it an epitome of actual London. Here, all along with brown
men, yellow men, black men, swathed Arabs, Poles, Czecho-Slovakians,
Turks, Spaniards, 5 per cent. Americans, and even (such is the bland
insouciance of London) a Bolshevik or so, foregather representatives of
all the thousand castes between peer and proletarian which people
Democropolis.
Not that these castes commingle! Each, as though disciplined, has its
assembly-place. Aliette and Mollie, for instance, taking the diagonal
path from Victoria Gate, would no more have let themselves intrude upon
the communistic sanctum near Marble Arch, than the fulminating prophets
of social equality and unlimited class-warfare would have dared invade
the stretch of turf and gravel by the Achilles statue which custom
reserves for "church-parade."
"We really ought to have gone to church first," said Mollie.
"Ought we?" answered an absent-minded sister.
Aliette's thoughts were very far from church. That morning, alone in the
bow-windowed library among the heavy pictures and the heavier books, she
had tried to be her old self again, to reason out the whole issue
involved by Ronnie's declaration. But her reasoning had been all
confused, baffled, and confounded of the emotions.
One fact only, as she now saw, had emerged star-clear from her hour of
introspection: the fact that she loved Ronnie. And she had no right to
love Ronnie! She was a married woman. Socially, and in the eyes of the
law, she belonged to Hector.
Walking, she tried to delude herself. Perhaps the love was all on her
side; perhaps her dreams would endure, bringing no reality.
But even the momentary delusion did not endure. Peremptorily her heart
assured her of Ronnie's devotion, of its permanence. Irrevocably she
knew that, sooner or later, the whole issue would have to be faced.
The two sisters walked on, silent in the sunshine, till they came to the
assembly-place of their caste. There, still silent, they sat them down
under the trees.
All about them, some seated, some strolling, were other well-groomed
people. Beyond the low-railed turf, a compact, orderly crowd sauntered
four deep along the sidewalk. Beyond them, occasional cars, occasional
carriages drew up to disgorge fresh arrivals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account