"She is spotless!" he replied; and felt that if it had sent him to
eternal hell there and then he would have told that lie.
"Then never mind the rest. After all, there are few purer things in
nature then an unsullied country maid. Any crudeness of manner which
may offend your more educated sense at first, will, I am sure,
disappear under the influence or your companionship and tuition."
Such terrible sarcasm of blind magnanimity brought home to Clare the
secondary perception that he had utterly wrecked his career by this
marriage, which had not been among his early thoughts after the
disclosure. True, on his own account he cared very little about his
career; but he had wished to make it at least a respectable one on
account of his parents and brothers. And now as he looked into the
candle its flame dumbly expressed to him that it was made to shine on
sensible people, and that it abhorred lighting the face of a dupe and
a failure.
When his agitation had cooled he would be at moments incensed with
his poor wife for causing a situation in which he was obliged to
practise deception on his parents. He almost talked to her in his
anger, as if she had been in the room. And then her cooing voice,
plaintive in expostulation, disturbed the darkness, the velvet touch
of her lips passed over his brow, and he could distinguish in the air
the warmth of her breath.
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