Nobody's Man by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
page 27 of 324 (08%)
page 27 of 324 (08%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
much easier for me to tell you. I married my wife thirteen years ago
because I believed that her wealth would help me in my career. She married me because she was an American with ambitions, anxious to find a definite place in English society. She has been disappointed in me. Other circumstances have now presented themselves. I have discovered that my wife's affections are bestowed elsewhere. To be perfectly honest, the discovery was a relief to me." "So that is why you are living down here like this?" she murmured. "Precisely! The one thing for which I am grateful," he went on, "is that I always refused to let my wife take a big country house. I insisted upon an unpretentious place for the times when I could rest. I think that I shall settle down here altogether. I can just afford to live here if I shoot plenty of rabbits, and if Robert's rheumatism is not too bad for him to look after the vegetable garden." "Of course you are talking nonsense," she pronounced, a little curtly. "Why nonsense?" "You must go back to your work," she insisted. "Keep this place for your holiday moments, certainly, but for the rest, to talk of settling down here is simply wicked." "What is my work?" he asked. "I tell you frankly that I do not know where I belong. A very intelligent constituency, stuffed up to the throat with schoolboard education, has determined that it would prefer a representative who has changed his politics already four times. I seem |
|