To her he suddenly
became an invalid; as the days went on she accepted the role of mother
and nurse to him; only occasionally did a more normal love flame out,
bewildering and enchanting as his kisses on the _Oriana_ had enchanted
and bewildered her. She felt, often, contemptuous of a man who had to
stay in bed and have his clothes locked up to save him from getting
drunk; at the same time she admired him for attempting so drastic a
cure. It was a wholly delightful experience to her to have money and
spend it on buying things for him; she would, at this time, have been
unrecognizable to Dr. Angus and Wullie; they would never have seen their
rather dreamy, very boy-like, almost unembodied Marcella of Lashnagar in
the Marcella of Sydney, with her alternate brooding maternal tenderness
that guarded him as a baby, or with the melting softness of suddenly
released passion. All her life she had been "saved up," dammed back,
save for her inarticulate adoration of her mother, her heart-rending
love of her father and her comradeship with Wullie and the doctor. Louis
had opened the lock gates of her love and got the full sweep of the
flood. But he gave nothing in return save the appeal of weakness, the
rather disillusioning charm of discovery and novelty.
For the first few weeks in Sydney she walked in an aura of passion
strangely blended of the physical and the spiritual.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315