Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Commercial crimes -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Mate selection -- Fiction; Satire
He felt almost sure in his heart of hearts that the girl loved that
other, younger man. That she had never owned to such love he was
quite sure. The man himself and Henrietta also had both assured him
on this point, and he was a man easily satisfied by words and prone
to believe. But he knew that Paul Montague was attached to her,
and that it was Paul's intention to cling to his love. Sorrowfully
looking forward through the vista of future years, he thought he saw
that Henrietta would become Paul's wife. Were it so, what should he
do? Annihilate himself as far as all personal happiness in the world
was concerned, and look solely to their happiness, their prosperity,
and their joys? Be as it were a beneficent old fairy to them, though
the agony of his own disappointment should never depart from him?
Should he do this, and be blessed by them,--or should he let Paul
Montague know what deep resentment such ingratitude could produce?
When had a father been kinder to a son, or a brother to a brother,
than he had been to Paul? His home had been the young man's home, and
his purse the young man's purse. What right could the young man have
to come upon him just as he was perfecting his bliss and rob him of
all that he had in the world? He was conscious all the while that
there was a something wrong in his argument,--that Paul when he
commenced to love the girl knew nothing of his friend's love,--that
the girl, though Paul had never come in the way, might probably have
been as obdurate as she was now to his entreaties. He knew all this
because his mind was clear. But yet the injustice,--at any rate, the
misery was so great, that to forgive it and to reward it would be
weak, womanly, and foolish. Roger Carbury did not quite believe in
the forgiveness of injuries. If you pardon all the evil done to you,
you encourage others to do you evil! If you give your cloak to him
who steals your coat, how long will it be before your shirt and
trousers will go also? Roger Carbury returned that afternoon to
Suffolk, and as he thought of it all throughout the journey, he
resolved that he would never forgive Paul Montague if Paul Montague
should become his cousin's husband.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GREAT RAILWAY TO VERA CRUZ.
"You have been a guest in his house. Then, I guess, the thing's about
as good as done." These words were spoken with a fine, sharp, nasal
twang by a brilliantly-dressed American gentleman in one of the
smartest private rooms of the great railway hotel at Liverpool, and
they were addressed to a young Englishman who was sitting opposite
to him. Between them there was a table covered with maps, schedules,
and printed programmes. The American was smoking a very large cigar,
which he kept constantly turning in his mouth, and half of which
was inside his teeth. The Englishman had a short pipe. Mr. Hamilton
K. Fisker, of the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, was the
American, and the Englishman was our friend Paul, the junior member
of that firm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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