Chapter 2 - Page 2

Creston had been more living for him
than any woman but one. This lady had a face that shone as
publicly as the jeweller's window, and in the happy candour with
which she wore her monstrous character was an effect of gross
immodesty. The character of Paul Creston's wife thus attributed to
her was monstrous for reasons Stransom could judge his friend to
know perfectly that he knew. The happy pair had just arrived from
America, and Stransom hadn't needed to be told this to guess the
nationality of the lady. Somehow it deepened the foolish air that
her husband's confused cordiality was unable to conceal. Stransom
recalled that he had heard of poor Creston's having, while his
bereavement was still fresh, crossed the sea for what people in
such predicaments call a little change. He had found the little
change indeed, he had brought the little change back; it was the
little change that stood there and that, do what he would, he
couldn't, while he showed those high front teeth of his, look other
than a conscious ass about. They were going into the shop, Mrs.
Creston said, and she begged Mr. Stransom to come with them and
help to decide. He thanked her, opening his watch and pleading an
engagement for which he was already late, and they parted while she
shrieked into the fog, "Mind now you come to see me right away!"
Creston had had the delicacy not to suggest that, and Stransom
hoped it hurt him somewhere to hear her scream it to all the
echoes.

He felt quite determined, as he walked away, never in his life to
go near her. She was perhaps a human being, but Creston oughtn't
to have shown her without precautions, oughtn't indeed to have
shown her at all. His precautions should have been those of a
forger or a murderer, and the people at home would never have
mentioned extradition. This was a wife for foreign service or
purely external use; a decent consideration would have spared her
the injury of comparisons. Such was the first flush of George
Stransom's reaction; but as he sat alone that night - there were
particular hours he always passed alone - the harshness dropped
from it and left only the pity. HE could spend an evening with
Kate Creston, if the man to whom she had given everything couldn't.
He had known her twenty years, and she was the only woman for whom
he might perhaps have been unfaithful. She was all cleverness and
sympathy and charm; her house had been the very easiest in all the
world and her friendship the very firmest. Without accidents he
had loved her, without accidents every one had loved her: she had
made the passions about her as regular as the moon makes the tides.
She had been also of course far too good for her husband, but he
never suspected it, and in nothing had she been