It was HIS child in
nature, however it might have favored her in looks; it was HIS own
brutal SELF he was worshiping in his brutal progeny. How else could it
have ignored HER--its own mother? She never doubted the truth of what
he had told her--she had seen it in his own triumphant eyes. And yet she
would have made a kind mother; she remembered with a smile and a slight
rising of color the affection of Barker's baby for her; she remembered
with a deepening of that color the thrill of satisfaction she had felt
in her husband's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, more than all,
she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of Barker himself a delicious
condonation of the strange feeling that had sprung up in her heart for
Barker's simple, straightforward nature. How could HE understand,
how could THEY understand (by the plural she meant Mrs. Barker and
Horncastle), a character so innately noble. In her strange attraction
towards him she had felt a charming sense of what she believed was a
superior and even matronly protection; in the utter isolation of her
life now--and with her husband's foolish abuse of him ringing in her
ears--it seemed a sacred duty. She had lost a son. Providence had sent
her an ideal friend to replace him. And this was quite consistent, too,
with a faint smile that began to play about her mouth as she recalled
some instances of Barker's delightful and irresistible youthfulness.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114