"
"No, she wouldn't. How do you know that?"
"There's no doubt about that."
"It depends upon what you mean by the best. The one _you_ call the
best might not seem so to _her_, and so on. Now I dare say she's
picked out for me a great, raw-boned, redheaded niece, with a nose
like a horse. And she expects me to marry a woman like that! with a
pace like a horse! Good Lord!"
And Hawbury leaned back, lost in the immensity of that one
overwhelming idea.
"Besides," said he, standing up, "I don't care if she was the angel
Gabriel. I don't want any of Biggs's nieces. I won't have them. By
Jove! And am I to be entrapped into a plan like that? I want Ethel.
And what's more, I will have her, or go without. The child-angel may
be the very identical one that my mother selected, and if you assert
that she is, I'll be hanged if I'll argue the point. I only say this,
that it doesn't alter my position in the slightest degree. I don't
want her. I won't have her. I don't want to see her. I don't care if
the whole of Biggs's nieces, in solemn conclave, with old Biggs at
their head, had formally discussed the whole matter, and finally
resolved unanimously that she should be mine. Good Lord, man! don't
you understand how it is? What the mischief do I care about any body?
Do you think I went through that fiery furnace for nothing? And what
do you suppose that life on the island meant? Is all that nothing? Did
you ever live on an island with the child-angel? Did you ever make a
raft for her and fly? Did you ever float down a river current between
banks burned black by raging fires, feeding her, soothing her,
comforting her, and all the while feeling in a general fever about
her? You hauled her out of a crater, did you? By Jove! And what of
that? Why, that furnace that I pulled Ethel out of was worse than a
hundred of your craters.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83