"Oh, dearest, what shall we do? I feel
perfectly broken down. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick--and away from
home! How could you ever let me overdo, so?" She put her handkerchief to
her eyes, and turned her face into the sofa pillow.
This was rather hard upon him, whom her vivid energy and inextinguishable
interest had not permitted a moment's respite from pleasure since they
left Carlsbad. But he had been married, too long not to understand that
her blame of him was only a form of self-reproach for her own
self-forgetfulness. She had not remembered that she was no longer young
till she had come to what he saw was a nervous collapse. The fact had its
pathos and its poetry which no one could have felt more keenly than he.
If it also had its inconvenience and its danger he realized these too.
"Isabel," he said, "we are going home."
"Very well, then it will be your doing."
"Quite. Do you think you could stand it as far as Cologne? We get the
sleeping-car there, and you can lie down the rest of the way to Ostend."
"This afternoon? Why I'm perfectly strong; it's merely my nerves that are
gone." She sat up, and wiped her eyes. "But Basil! If you're doing this
for me--"
"I'm doing it for myself," said March, as he went out of the room.
Pages:
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610