Or, perhaps, after a year. Well, you see, I did
follow Nancy out to India after a year. . . . I must confess to
having felt a little angry with Leonora for not having warned me
earlier that the girl would be going. I took it as one of the queer,
not very straight methods that Roman Catholics seem to adopt in
dealing with matters of this world. I took it that Leonora had been
afraid I should propose to the girl or, at any rate, have made
considerably greater advances to her than I did, if I had known
earlier that she was going away so soon. Perhaps Leonora was
right; perhaps Roman Catholics, with their queer, shifty ways, are
always right. They are dealing with the queer, shifty thing that is
human nature. For it is quite possible that, if I had known Nancy
was going away so soon, I should have tried making love to her.
And that would have produced another complication. It may have
been just as well.
It is queer the fantastic things that quite good people will do in
order to keep up their appearance of calm pococurantism. For
Edward Ashburnham and his wife called me half the world over
in order to sit on the back seat of a dog-cart whilst Edward drove
the girl to the railway station from which she was to take her
departure to India.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339