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Page 18
What follows should be prefaced with some simile--the
simile of a powder-mine, a thunderbolt, an earthquake--for it
blew Philip up in the air and flattened him on the ground
and swallowed him up in the depths. Lilia turned on her
gallant defender and said--
"For once in my life I'll thank you to leave me alone.
I'll thank your mother too. For twelve years you've trained
me and tortured me, and I'll stand it no more. Do you think
I'm a fool? Do you think I never felt? Ah! when I came to
your house a poor young bride, how you all looked me
over--never a kind word--and discussed me, and thought I might
just do; and your mother corrected me, and your sister
snubbed me, and you said funny things about me to show how
clever you were! And when Charles died I was still to run
in strings for the honour of your beastly family, and I was
to be cooped up at Sawston and learn to keep house, and all
my chances spoilt of marrying again. No, thank you! No,
thank you! 'Bully?' 'Insolent boy?' Who's that, pray, but
you? But, thank goodness, I can stand up against the world
now, for I've found Gino, and this time I marry for love!"
The coarseness and truth of her attack alike overwhelmed
him. But her supreme insolence found him words, and he too
burst forth.
"Yes! and I forbid you to do it! You despise me,
perhaps, and think I'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You
are ungrateful and impertinent and contemptible, but I will
save you in order to save Irma and our name. There is going
to be such a row in this town that you and he'll be sorry
you came to it. I shall shrink from nothing, for my blood
is up. It is unwise of you to laugh. I forbid you to marry
Carella, and I shall tell him so now."
"Do," she cried. "Tell him so now. Have it out with
him. Gino! Gino! Come in! Avanti! Fra Filippo forbids
the banns!"
Gino appeared so quickly that he must have been
listening outside the door.
"Fra Filippo's blood's up. He shrinks from nothing.
Oh, take care he doesn't hurt you!" She swayed about in
vulgar imitation of Philip's walk, and then, with a proud
glance at the square shoulders of her betrothed, flounced
out of the room.
Did she intend them to fight? Philip had no intention
of doing so; and no more, it seemed, had Gino, who stood
nervously in the middle of the room with twitching lips and eyes.
"Please sit down, Signor Carella," said Philip in
Italian. "Mrs. Herriton is rather agitated, but there is no
reason we should not be calm. Might I offer you a
cigarette? Please sit down."
He refused the cigarette and the chair, and remained
standing in the full glare of the lamp. Philip, not averse
to such assistance, got his own face into shadow.
For a long time he was silent. It might impress Gino,
and it also gave him time to collect himself. He would not
this time fall into the error of blustering, which he had
caught so unaccountably from Lilia. He would make his power
felt by restraint.
Why, when he looked up to begin, was Gino convulsed with
silent laughter? It vanished immediately; but he became
nervous, and was even more pompous than he intended.
"Signor Carella, I will be frank with you. I have come
to prevent you marrying Mrs. Herriton, because I see you
will both be unhappy together. She is English, you are
Italian; she is accustomed to one thing, you to another.
And--pardon me if I say it--she is rich and you are poor."
"I am not marrying her because she is rich," was the
sulky reply.
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