“Gus,” said Dinah, “I can’t understand things.”
“What things?”
“Tennyson’s Dream of Fair Women.”
“I shouldn’t think you could. I have spent hours on it trying to make it out. You look up Marc Antony and Cleopatra—”
“As if I had to.”
“Well, look up the daughter of the warrior Gileadite, and fair Rosamond, and angered Eleanor, and Fulvia, and Joan of Arc.”
“And will you read it to us, and talk all about it?” cried Dinah in delight. “I like King Lear when father reads it, but I can’t understand Shakespeare; he is all conversations.”
Mr. Hammerton laughed, and patted her head. “I will bring you the stories that Charles and Mary Lamb gathered from Shakespeare.”
“Shall we turn?” asked Tessa, slipping her hand through his arm; he instantly imprisoned her fingers. Felix would be troubled and angry she knew, even at this clasp of an old friend’s hand. Jealousy was his one strong passion; he was jealous of the books she read, of the letters she received, of every word spoken to her that he did not hear; she wondered as her fingers drew themselves free, if he would ever become jealous of her prayers.
She drew a long breath as the weight of her bondage fell heavier and heavier; and then, he was so demonstrative, so lavish of his caresses, and her ideal of a lover was one who held himself aloof, who kept his hands and his lips to himself. She sighed more than once as she kept even pace with the others.