Nothing, certainly, forced such people to
fix their affections on the daughter of a "healer"; it would be very
clumsy to pick her out of her generation only for the purpose of
frustrating her. Moreover, her observation of their young host at
Delmonico's and in the spacious box at the Academy of Music, where they
had privacy and ease, and murmured words could pass without making
neighbours more given up to the stage turn their heads--her
consideration of Henry Burrage's manner, suggested to her that she had
measured him rather scantily the year before, that he was as much in
love as the feebler passions of the age permitted (for though Miss
Chancellor believed in the amelioration of humanity, she thought there
was too much water in the blood of all of us), that he prized Verena for
her rarity, which was her genius, her gift, and would therefore have an
interest in promoting it, and that he was of so soft and fine a paste
that his wife might do what she liked with him. Of course there would be
the mother-in-law to count with; but unless she was perjuring herself
shamelessly Mrs. Burrage really had the wish to project herself into the
new atmosphere, or at least to be generous personally; so that, oddly
enough, the fear that most glanced before Olive was not that this high,
free matron, slightly irritable with cleverness and at the same time
good-natured with prosperity, would bully her son's bride, but rather
that she might take too fond a possession of her.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124