But Oke got worse. He was growing perfectly unstrung, like a hysterical
woman. One evening that we were sitting alone in the smoking-room, he began
unexpectedly a rambling discourse about his wife; how he had first known
her when they were children, and they had gone to the same dancing-school
near Portland Place; how her mother, his aunt-in-law, had brought her for
Christmas to Okehurst while he was on his holidays; how finally, thirteen
years ago, when he was twenty-three and she was eighteen, they had been
married; how terribly he had suffered when they had been disappointed of
their baby, and she had nearly died of the illness.
"I did not mind about the child, you know," he said in an excited voice;
"although there will be an end of us now, and Okehurst will go to the
Curtises. I minded only about Alice." It was next to inconceivable that
this poor excited creature, speaking almost with tears in his voice and in
his eyes, was the quiet, well-got-up, irreproachable young ex-Guardsman who
had walked into my studio a couple of months before.
Oke was silent for a moment, looking fixedly at the rug at his feet, when
he suddenly burst out in a scarce audible voice--
"If you knew how I cared for Alice--how I still care for her.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87