This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net>
and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By George Meredith
1905
At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has few attractions toother than invalids and hermits enamoured of wind and rain, the potentnobleman, Lord Mountfalcon, still lingered there to the disgust of hisfriends and special parasite. "Mount's in for it again," they said amongthemselves. "Hang the women!" was a natural sequence. For, don't yousee, what a shame it was of the women to be always kindling such a veryinflammable subject! All understood that Cupid had twanged his bow, andtransfixed a peer of Britain for the fiftieth time: but none wouldperceive, though he vouched for it with his most eloquent oaths, thatthis was a totally different case from the antecedent ones. So it hadbeen sworn to them too frequently before. He was as a man with mightytidings, and no language: intensely communicative, but inarticulate.Good round oaths had formerly compassed and expounded his noble emotions.They were now quite beyond the comprehension of blasphemy, even whenemphasized, and by this the poor lord divinely felt the case wasdifferent. There is something impressive in a great human hulk writhingunder the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot contend with, oraccount for, or explain by means of intelligible words. At first he tookrefuge in the depths of his contempt for women. Cupid gave him line.When he had come to vent his worst of them, the fair face now stamped onhis brain beamed the more triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose tothe surface, and after a few convulsions, surrendered his huge length.My lord was in love with Richard's young wife. He gave proofs of it byburying himself beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he gavefurther proofs of a real devotion, in affecting, and in her presencefeeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being. Thiswonder, that when near her he should be cool and composed, and when awayfrom her wrapped in a tempest of desires, was matter for what powers ofcogitation the heavy nobleman possessed.
The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press thebusiness. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than hisparasite. Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced littlewife apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had commendedher to the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady Judith hadleft the Island for London: Lord Mountfalcon remained. There could be noharm. If she had ever thought so, she no longer did. Secretly, perhaps,she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as well educated as it is thefortune of the run of titled elder sons to be: he could talk andinstruct: he was a lord: and he let her understand that he was wicked,very wicked, and that she improved him. The heroine, in common with thehero, has her ambition to be of use in the world—to do some good: andthe task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women.Dear to their tender bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending!Lord Mountfalcon had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, histitle, and his person had hitherto preserved him from having long to sighin vain, or si