Part One
Chapter 5: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
(continued)
"Generally," replied Mr. Eager, "one has only sympathy for their
success. The desire for education and for social advance--in
these things there is something not wholly vile. There are some
working men whom one would be very willing to see out here in
Florence--little as they would make of it."
"Is he a journalist now?" Miss Bartlett asked, "He is not; he
made an advantageous marriage."
He uttered this remark with a voice full of meaning, and ended
with a sigh.
"Oh, so he has a wife."
"Dead, Miss Bartlett, dead. I wonder--yes I wonder how he has the
effrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance
with me. He was in my London parish long ago. The other day in
Santa Croce, when he was with Miss Honeychurch, I snubbed him.
Let him beware that he does not get more than a snub."
"What?" cried Lucy, flushing.
"Exposure!" hissed Mr. Eager.
He tried to change the subject; but in scoring a dramatic point
he had interested his audience more than he had intended. Miss
Bartlett was full of very natural curiosity. Lucy, though she
wished never to see the Emersons again, was not disposed to
condemn them on a single word.
"Do you mean," she asked, "that he is an irreligious man? We know
that already."
"Lucy, dear--" said Miss Bartlett, gently reproving her cousin's
penetration.
"I should be astonished if you knew all. The boy--an innocent
child at the time--I will exclude. God knows what his education
and his inherited qualities may have made him."
"Perhaps," said Miss Bartlett, "it is something that we had
better not hear."
"To speak plainly," said Mr. Eager, "it is. I will say no more."
For the first time Lucy's rebellious thoughts swept out in
words--for the first time in her life.
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