The Tale of Chloe: An Episode in the History of Beau BeamishMeredith, George
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The Tale of Chloe: An Episode in the History of Beau Beamish
Meredith, George
English fiction -- 19th century
'She fears you, sir,' Caseldy answered. 'You have inspired her with an
extraordinary fear of you.'
'I have?' said the beau: it had been his endeavour to inspire it, and he
swelled somewhat, rather with relief at the thought of his possessing a
power to control his delicate charge, than with our vanity; yet would it
be audacious to say that there was not a dose of the latter. He was a
very human man; and he had, as we have seen, his ideas of the effect of
the impression of fear upon the hearts of women. Something, in any case,
caused him to forget the cavalier.
They were drawn to the three preceding them, by a lively dissension
between Chloe and Mr. Camwell.
Duchess Susan explained it in her blunt style: 'She wants him to go away
home, and he says he will, if she'll give him that double skein of silk
she swings about, and she says she won't, let him ask as long as he
pleases; so he says he sha'n't go, and I'm sure I don't see why he
should; and she says he may stay, but he sha'n't have her necklace, she
calls it. So Mr. Camwell snatches, and Chloe fires up. Gracious, can't
she frown!--at him. She never frowns at anybody but him.'
Caseldy attempted persuasion on Mr. Camwell's behalf. With his mouth at
Chloe's ear, he said, 'Give it; let the poor fellow have his memento;
despatch him with it.'
'I can hear! and that is really kind,' exclaimed Duchess Susan.
'Rather a missy-missy schoolgirl sort of necklace,' Mr. Beamish observed;
'but he might have it, without the dismissal, for I cannot consent to
lose Alonzo. No, madam,' he nodded at the duchess.
Caseldy continued his whisper: 'You can't think of wearing a thing like
that about your neck?'
'Indeed,' said Chloe, 'I think of it.'
'Why, what fashion have you over here?'
'It is not yet a fashion,' she said.
'A silken circlet will not well become any precious pendant that I know
of.'
'A bag of dust is not a very precious pendant,' she said.
'Oh, a memento mori!' cried he.
And she answered, 'Yes.'
He rallied her for her superstition, pursuing, 'Surely, my love, 'tis a
cheap riddance of a pestilent, intrusive jaloux. Whip it into his hands
for a mittimus.'
'Does his presence distress you?' she asked.
'I will own that to be always having the fellow dogging us, with his
dejected leer, is not agreeable. He watches us now, because my lips are
close by your cheek. He should be absent; he is one too many. Speed him
on his voyage with the souvenir he asks for.'
'I keep it for a journey of my own, which I may have to take,' said
Chloe.
'With me?'
'You will follow; you cannot help following me, Caseldy.'
He speculated on her front. She was tenderly smiling. 'You are happy,
Chloe?'
'I have never known such happiness,' she said. The brilliancy of her
eyes confirmed it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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