In Silk Attire: A Novel

by William Black

"I was going to say—how could stupid people exist if they did not despise their superiors in wit, and intellect, and artistic perception? There is a man at my club, for instance, who is intellectually, as he is physically, a head and shoulders taller than any of his brother members. What reputation has he? Simply that of being 'an amusing young fellow, but—but very shallow, don't you know.' The empty-headed idiots of the smoking-room sit and laugh at his keen humour, and delicate irony, and witty stories; and rather patronise and pity him in that he is weak enough to be amusing. A dull man always finds his refuge in calling a man of brighter parts than himself 'shallow.' You should see this friend of mine when he goes down into the country to see his relations; how he is looked upon at the dinner-table as being only fit to make the women smile; and how some simpering fool of a squire, with nothing more brilliant in his library than a pair of hunting-boots, will grin compassionately to some other thick-headed boor, as though it were a ludicrous thing to see a man make himself so like a woman in being witty and entertaining."

"And you think the women in these country-houses more intelligent and amusing than the men?"

"God help country-houses when the women are taken out of them!"

"What a large portion of my life have I wasted over this abominable Bradshaw!" said Count Schönstein, coming up at that moment, and their conversation was for the present stopped.

But Will now recognised more firmly than ever the invisible barrier that was placed between her and the people among whom his life had been cast; and, perhaps, for Dove's sake, he was a little glad that he could never look upon this too-charming young actress but as the inhabitant of another world. And sometimes, too, he involuntarily echoed Dove's exclamation, "You are too beautiful to be an actress?"

When, after a pleasant little supper-party in the Mayence Hotel, at which they stopped, they parted for the night, Will congratulated himself on the resolution he had taken in the morning. It had been such a pleasant day; and who was the worse for it? He was sick at heart when he thought the time would come in which he could no more enjoy the keen pleasure of sitting near this tender creature, of watching her pretty ways, and listening to her voice. The love he felt for her seemed to give him a right of property in her, and he thought of her going for ever away from him as an irreparable and painful loss. There was a quick, anxious throbbing at his heart as he attempted to picture that last interview; for he had resolved that after their return to England, he would not permit himself to see her again. He thought of her going away from him without once knowing of that subtle personal link which seemed to unite them in a secret friendship. She would be quite unconscious of the pain of that parting; she might even think that he had yielded to the prejudices of which she had spoken, and had become ashamed of her friendship.

"That, too, must be borne," he said, with a sigh. "I cannot explain why I should cease to see her; and yet we must never meet again after we return to England. If it were not for Dove, I should look out for some appointment abroad, and so get an excuse; for it is hard to think that I must wound the self-respect of so gentle a creature by appearing to refuse her proffered friendship without a cause."

Then he sat down and wrote a long letter to Dove; and for the first time he felt a great constraint upon him in so doing. He was so anxious, too, that she should not notice the constraint, that he wrote in a more than usually affectionate strain, and strove to impress her with the necessity of their being married very soon.

"Once married," he said to himself, "I shall soon forget this unhappy business. In any case, we must all suffer more or less; and it is entirely owing to my carelessness in enjoying Miss Brunel's society without looking at what it might lead to. But how should a man of my years have anticipated such a thing? Have I not been intimate with as pretty and as accomplished women in all parts of the world, without ever dreaming of falling in love with them?"

But no, there was no woman so pretty and charming as this one, he reflected. No one at all. And so, counting up in his mind, like a miser counting his guineas, one by one, the few days he would yet have to spend in the torturing delight of being near to her, he got him to bed, and did not dream of St. Mary-Kirby.