Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeannette Duncan
page 53 of 258 (20%)
impression went abroad that Dacres had been sent disconsolate away.
One astonishing conversation I had with her some six months later,
which turned upon the point of a particularly desirable offer. She
told me something then, without any sort of embarrassment, but quite
lucidly and directly, that edified me much to hear. She said that
while she was quite sure that Mr. Tottenham thought of her only as a
friend--she had never had the least reason for any other impression-
-he had done her a service for which she could not thank him enough-
-in showing her what a husband might be. He had given her a
standard; it might be high, but it was unalterable. She didn't know
whether she could describe it, but Mr. Tottenham was different from
the kind of man you seemed to meet in India. He had his own ways of
looking at things, and he talked so well. He had given her an
ideal, and she intended to profit by it. To know that men like Mr.
Tottenham existed, and to marry any other kind would be an act of
folly which she did not intend to commit. No, Major the Hon. Hugh
Taverel did not come near it--very far short, indeed! He had talked
to her during the whole of dinner the night before about jackal-
hunting with a bobbery pack--not at all an elevated mind. Yes, he
might be a very good fellow, but as a companion for life she was
sure he would not be at all suitable. She would wait.

And she has waited. I never thought she would, but she has. From
time to time men have wished to take her from us, but the standard
has been inexorable, and none of them have reached it. When Dacres
married the charming American whom he caught like a butterfly upon
her Eastern tour, Cecily sent them as a wedding present an alabaster
model of the Taj, and I let her do it--the gift was so exquisitely
appropriate. I suppose he never looks at it without being reminded
that he didn't marry Miss Farnham, and I hope that he remembers that
DigitalOcean Referral Badge