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Viviette by William John Locke
page 51 of 119 (42%)
Austin, against which his honest soul had struggled successfully all his
life long, had passed beyond his control. These few days of Austin's
Whitsun visit had changed his cosmic view. Petty rebuffs, such as the
matters of the stables and the Rural District Council, which formerly he
would have regarded in the twilight of his mind as part of the
unchangeable order of things in which Austin was destined to shine
resplendently and he to glimmer--Austin the arc-lamp and he the
tallow-dip--became magnified into grievances and insults intolerable.
Esau could not have raged more against Jacob, the supplanter, than did
Dick, when Austin carried off Viviette from beneath his nose. Until this
visit of Austin he had no idea that he would find a rival in his
brother. The discovery was a shock, causing his world to reel and
setting free all the pent-up jealousies and grievances of a lifetime.
Everything he had given up to Austin, if not willingly, at least
graciously, hiding beneath the rough, tanned hide of his homely face all
pain, disappointment, and humiliation. But now Austin had come and
swooped off with his one ewe lamb. Not that Viviette had encouraged him
by more than the real but mocking affection with which she had treated
her bear foster-brother ever since her elfin childhood. In a dim way he
realised this, and absolved her from blame. Less dimly, also, he felt
his mental and social inferiority, his lack of warrant in offering her
marriage. But his great, rugged manhood wanted her, the woman, with an
imperious, savage need which took all the training of civilisation to
repress. Viviette alone in her maidenly splendour, he could have fought
it down. But the vision of another man entering, light-hearted and
debonair, into those precincts maddened him, let loose primitive
instincts of hatred and revenge, and robbed him of all interest in the
toys with which men used to slay each other centuries ago.

Austin, being nearest the door, opened it for the ladies to pass out.
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