Love and hatred - Marie Belloc Lowndes

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once knew a man," he said, in a low, tense voice, "who for years loved a woman who seemed unresponsive, who forced him to be content with the merest crumbs of—well, she called it friendship. And yet, mother, that man was happy in his love. And towards the end of her life the woman gave all that he had longed for, all he had schooled himself to believe it was not in her to give—but it had been there all the time! She had suffered, poor angel, more than he—" his voice broke, and his mother, turning towards him, laid for a moment her hand on his, as she whispered, "Was that woman at all like Laura, my darling?"

      "Yes—as far as a Spaniard, and a Roman Catholic, can be like Laura, she was like Laura."

      Even as he spoke he had risen to his feet, and during their short walk, from the bench where they had been sitting through the trees and across the lawn, neither spoke to the other. But, as he opened the house door, he said, "Good-night. I'm not coming in now; I'm going for a walk. I haven't walked all day." He hesitated a moment: "Don't be worried—I won't say don't be frightened, for I don't believe, mother, that anything could ever frighten you—if you hear me coming in rather late. I've got to think out a rather difficult problem—something connected with my business."

      "I hope Gillie hasn't been getting into any scrape since you've come home?"

      But she only spoke by way of falling in with his humour. Nothing mattered to her, or to him, just now, except—Laura.

      He said hastily, "Oh no, things have been going very well out there. You must remember, mother, that Baynton's scrapes never affect his work."

      He spoke absently, and she realised that he wanted to be away, by himself, to think over some of the things she had said to him, and so she turned and went slowly up the staircase, and passed through into her own bedroom without turning up the light.

      Walking over to her window, she gazed down into the moonlit space beneath. But she could see no moving shadow, hear no sound. Oliver had padded away across the grass, making for the lonely downs which encircled, on three sides, the house.

      Before turning away from her window, Mrs. Tropenell covered her face with her hands; she was fearfully moved, shaken to the depths of her heart. For the first time Oliver had bared his soul before her. She thrilled with pride in the passionate, wayward, in a measure nobly selfless and generous human being whom she had created.

      How strange, how amazing that Laura made no response to that ardent, exalted passion! But if amazing, then also, from what ought to be every point of view, how fortunate! And yet, unreasonable though it was, Mrs. Tropenell felt sharply angered with Laura, irritated by that enigmatic, self-absorbed, coldness of hers. What a poor maimed creature, to be so blind, so imperceptive, to the greatest thing in the world! Dislike, a physical distaste for the unlucky Godfrey which seemed sometimes to amount to horror, were this beautiful woman's nearest approach to passion.

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