VOLUME II
51. CHAPTER LI
(continued)
She had never uttered her worst thought to her husband before,
and the sensation of hearing it was evidently new to Osmond. But
he showed no surprise, and his coolness was apparently a proof
that he had believed his wife would in fact be unable to resist
for ever his ingenious endeavour to draw her out. "It's all the
more intense then," he answered. And he added almost as if he
were giving her a friendly counsel: "This is a very important
matter." She recognised that; she was fully conscious of the
weight of the occasion; she knew that between them they had
arrived at a crisis. Its gravity made her careful; she said
nothing, and he went on. "You say I've no reason? I have the very
best. I dislike, from the bottom of my soul, what you intend to
do. It's dishonourable; it's indelicate; it's indecent. Your
cousin is nothing whatever to me, and I'm under no obligation to
make concessions to him. I've already made the very handsomest.
Your relations with him, while he was here, kept me on pins and
needles; but I let that pass, because from week to week I
expected him to go. I've never liked him and he has never liked
me. That's why you like him--because he hates me," said Osmond
with a quick, barely audible tremor in his voice. "I've an ideal
of what my wife should do and should not do. She should not
travel across Europe alone, in defiance of my deepest desire, to
sit at the bedside of other men. Your cousin's nothing to you;
he's nothing to us. You smile most expressively when I talk about
US, but I assure you that WE, WE, Mrs. Osmond, is all I know. I
take our marriage seriously; you appear to have found a way of
not doing so. I'm not aware that we're divorced or separated; for
me we're indissolubly united. You are nearer to me than any human
creature, and I'm nearer to you. It may be a disagreeable
proximity; it's one, at any rate, of our own deliberate making.
You don't like to be reminded of that, I know; but I'm perfectly
willing, because--because--" And he paused a moment, looking as if
he had something to say which would be very much to the point.
"Because I think we should accept the consequences of our
actions, and what I value most in life is the honour of a thing!"
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