And yet, when I thought of what her
life must be like, its immorality disturbed me more, perhaps, than if it
had stood before me in some concrete and recognisable form, by its secrecy
and invisibility, like the plot of a novel, the hidden truth of a scandal
which had driven out of the home of her middle-class parents and dedicated
to the service of all mankind which had brought to the flowering-point of
her beauty, had raised to fame or notoriety this woman, the play of whose
features, the intonations of whose voice, like so many others I already
knew, made me regard her, in spite of myself, as a young lady of good
family, her who was no longer of a family at all.
We had gone by this time into the 'study,' and my uncle, who seemed a
trifle embarrassed by my presence, offered her a cigarette.
"No, thank you, dear friend," she said. "You know I only smoke the ones
the Grand Duke sends me. I tell him that they make you jealous." And she
drew from a case cigarettes covered with inscriptions in gold, in a
foreign language. "Why, yes," she began again suddenly. "Of course I have
met this young man's father with you.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147