Читать книгу Lover and Husband. A Novel онлайн

133 страница из 136

“Whoever she is she cannot have been brought up with the idea of occupying a dependent position,” he said to himself, and then thought no more about it; but gave himself up to the, to him, rare pleasure of spending an hour with two agreeable women, one of whom was lively and amusing, and the other something more than either. What he could, not exactly say. Not beautiful, not brilliant, not fascinating. What then? Something that suited and interested him, something original, unlike what he had seen in other women; and so unconscious, so artless, so thoroughly womanly. Over and over again he found himself asking, “Where lay the charm?” Grey eyes, brown hair, sweet voice, sweeter smile, which of you all has to answer for it? None, yet all. A something including and surpassing all these, a something so subtle and indefinable, that not in all the long roll of years since this old world began, has poet breathed or minstrel sung, words, which, to those who have never felt it for themselves, can in the least picture or describe this strange, sweet, sad mystery.