He was a noble, a wonderful man. Everything I am I
owe to him."
Imogen had straightened herself, the traces of weeping almost gone, her own
fluency, as was usual with her, quieting her emotion, even while her own
and her father's wrongs, thus objectivized in careful phrases, made
indignation at once colder and deeper. Her very effort to quell
indignation, to command her voice to an even justice of tone before this
lover of her mother's, gave it a resonant quality, curiously impressive.
And, as she looked before her, down into the blue profundities, the sense
of her own sincerity seemed to pulse back to her from her silent listener,
and filled her with a growing consciousness of power over him.
"This morning," she took up her theme on that resonant note, deepened to a
tragic pitch, "we went to mama--Mr. Potts and I--to tell her of our project
of commemoration, to ask her cooperation. We wanted to be very generous
with her, to take her help and her sympathy for granted. I should have
felt it an insult to my mother had I told Mr. Potts that we must carry on
our work without consulting her. She received us with cold indifference.
She tried not to listen, when she heard what our errand was. And her
indifference became hostility, when she understood. All her old hatred for
what he was and meant, all her fundamental antagonism to the purpose of his
life--and to him--came at last, openly, to the light. She was forced to
reveal herself.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273