'
'You'll get cold,' Charles said severely. She had been out there with
the man who murdered music and who, therefore, was a scoundrel, and
Charles's objection was based on that fact and not on Francis Sales's
married state. He had not the pleasure of feeling a pious indignation
that a man with an invalid wife walked on the terrace with Henrietta.
He would have said, 'Why not?' and he would have found an excuse for
any man in the beauty, the wonder, the enchantment of that girl,
though he could not forgive Henrietta for her friendship with the
slaughterer of music and of birds.
He glared and repeated, 'You'll be ill.'
Henrietta pretended not to hear him, and Rose said thoughtfully and
slowly, 'Oh, no, Charles, people don't get cold when they are happy.'
'I suppose not.' He felt in a vague way that he and Rose, sitting
there, for he had forgotten to stand up, were united against the other
two who stood, very clear, against the gold-embossed wall of the room,
and that those two were conscious of the antagonism. They also were
united and he felt an increase of his dull pain at the sight of their
comeliness, the suspicion of their likeness to each other. 'I suppose
not,' Charles said, and after that no one spoke, as though it were
impossible to find a light word, and unnecessary.
Each one was aware of conflict, of something fierce and silent going
on, but it was Rose who understood the situation best and Charles who
understood it least.
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