Bulstrode

“ As for the rest of it..." she turned away for a second towards the window, and Bulstrode saw how the hot blood had mounted and her eyes had changed when after a moment she came back to him again. She put out towards him a beseeching hand: "You above all men, who are faithful to an ideal, must not give me old platitudes!"
Bulstrode's head reeled. He felt like a man who after a narcotic finds his brain suddenly alight and real things grow strange. He wanted to rub his eyes. She appeared singularly to appreciate his daze. ”

“ As Bulstrode stood in the window of his room at Westboro' Castle, his face turned toward the country, it seemed to beckon him. It called him from the park's end where suave and smooth the curving downs met the preciser contour of the eastern field; from hedges holding snugly in the roadways, the roads themselves running off on pleasant excursions to townships whose names are suggestive of romance, whose gentle beauties have mellowed with the ages which give them value and leave them perfect. ”

“ Bulstrode came back to the castle Christmas Day at nine o'clock. But the hour had the effect of being much earlier. The winter morning panoplied with festivity began its life slowly, and not all the day's brightness through which he had speeded his motor had yet come into the house. Bulstrode, drawn by it, went directly back to the room he had left several hours before, as though he expected still to find the woman he loved sitting before the extinguished fire. ”

“ Bulstrode had given himself methodically another cup of tea, and helped himself now to sugar.
"Oh, atmosphere!" he repeated scornfully. "One can't live on air, you know. And I have been of the most colorless kind."
"Well, you've changed terribly," she accused him.
"I've only come down to solid earth," he explained. "And the earth's after all where we belong, Duchess. Stand firm, keep to your own part of it, and don't cloud-gaze, or somebody with a claim will knock you off your little foothold." ”

“ On the dining-room floor, close to the window wide open to the icy night, lay a man's form, and over him bent another man cruelly, with all the animus of a bird of prey.
The under man was Ruggles, Bulstrode's butler, his eyes starting from their sockets, his mouth open, his color livid; he couldn't have called out, for the other man had seized his necktie, twisted it tight as a tourniquet around the man's gullet, and so kneeling with one knee on his chest, Waring held the big man under. ”

“ The Frenchman followed the older man, who in contrast to his pallor looked the picture of health and spirits. Bulstrode cheerily led him to a small table in the corner of the restaurant, where they sat opposite one another, and for a little time applied themselves in silence to the light supper served them.
The Marquis drank more than he ate, and Bulstrode dutifully finished the game and toast, quite glad, in truth, to break the fast of a long evening which he had spent in the close rooms: for no other reason than unseen, to befriend—and unasked, to chaperone Molly's lover. ”

“ She spoke with interest of the races, and with confidence greater than she had hitherto evinced in the fortunes of her husband's racer—indeed she talked horse to Molly's edification, her husband's delight, and Bulstrode's admiration. All this—the sense that the party was, so to speak, with him—put Jack Falconer in the best of spirits, and the unruffled course of the dinner, and, above all, the humor of the elder of the two ladies, quite repaid Jimmy Bulstrode for the sure loss of his stakes.
"Does she really think that I have faith in the horse?" ”

“ He was a free man; he was not simply an embodied intellect kept by Skelton for his uses, as the feudal barons of old kept the wearers of the motley. Bulstrode began to walk about jovially, to hold up his head, to mend his slouchy gait and careless manners. He strolled up to Mrs. Blair, standing by the library door, with as much of an air as if he owned Deerchase. Skelton, who was not far off, said, smiling, to Sylvia:
“Drink does improve Bulstrode. He always declares that it makes a gentleman of him.” ”

“ Bulstrode smiled fatuously.
"Can't a man pay for his fads? I want to be painted by the person who did that portrait over there, Miss Desprey."
In a tiny studio—the dingy chrysalis of a Bohemian art student—Bulstrode posed for his portrait.
Each morning saw him set forth from the Ritz alert and debonaire in his fastidious toilet—-saw him cross the Place Vendôme, the bridge, and lose his worldly figure in the lax nonchalant crowd of the Quarter Latin. ”

“ Ruggles was a new addition to the household, and Bulstrode did not like him.
"A person," Bulstrode repeated, quietly; "what sort of a person?"
"A man, sir."
"Not a gentleman? No," he nodded gently; "I see you do not think him one. Yet that he is a man is in his favor. There are some gentlemen who aren't men, you know. Let him in."
In doing so Ruggles seemed to let in the night. Bulstrode had, in the warmth of his fragrant room, forgotten that outside was the wintry dark. Ruggles, in letting the man in, had the air of thrusting him in, and shut the door behind the visitor with a click. ”

“ After not a great deal of hesitation, toward the middle of a warm June, Bulstrode permitted himself to become the proprietor of a palace: not an inhabitant of the ordinary dwelling modelled after some old-world wonder, wherein American millionaires choose to spend their leisure in their own country—but of a real traditional palace, in whose charming rooms no object was younger than Bulstrode's great-grandfather, and where the enchanting women of the Fragonards and Nattiers almost made him, as he mused upon them, lose sight for a moment of a living lady. ”

“ The lines and files of soft-footed, impersonal servants, the perfect stilted attention, the silence, and the inhumanness of a man's lonely life, became intolerable to Jimmy Bulstrode. Even though Frances, Duchess of Westboro', had truly said that the castle was a delightful home, Bulstrode began to wonder what that word comprised or meant: certainly nothing like his occupation of another man's house or like any life that is lived alone. ”

“ Bulstrode's naïve way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the nothingness of this life and the desirability of cut glass, the consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best damask, was not a sufficient relief from the weight of her husband's invariable seriousness. ”

“ Under the low eaves the bed-chamber shone out gay with chintz, fresh and sweet as a midwinter bouquet, the frostiness coming in around it through the slightly opened window, and there was the scent of the firs and the cedar wood that closely hemmed the old place in.
"Heavens!" thought the Duchess, half aloud. "How dreadfully in love Jimmy Bulstrode is, how dreadfully, faithfully in love!" And then she went on to say: "How dreadfully I am myself in love, and no one is hurrying to me!" ”

“ He was able to say honestly: "Quite the most beautiful house I have ever seen."
"Yes, I think so too," she nodded. "It's not so important as many others but it's more perfect, more like a home."
Bulstrode sat back in his chair and tried to make her forget him. Between the fire and the shadow he wanted to watch her face from which he now saw that the beauty he remembered had not faded but had been transformed. She was beautiful in another way: the brilliant, blooming girl, fully blown at eighteen, with the dazzling charm of health, no longer existed in the Duchess of Westboro'. ”

“ Skelton turned towards Bulstrode, who was utterly abject and pitiable. The collapse of any human being is overpowering, but of a man with an intellect like Bulstrode’s it became terrible. Mrs. Blair’s large and beautiful eyes filled with tears that rolled down her cheeks and upon her bare, white neck. She put her hand on Bulstrode’s arm; it was the first kind touch of a woman’s hand that he had felt for thirty years. ”

“ And being nothing but a human man, he threw all his good resolves to the wind, and went down and stayed three days at Fontainebleau.
Out under the sky, where the elastic earth sprang softly beneath her feet and the embowered forests were sifted through with gold, Mary Falconer finally asked him, "And your doll, Jimmy? Have you broken her yet?" Bulstrode felt a guilty twinge, for he had not once thought of the little girl, nor did Mrs. Falconer's mention of her bring the subject near enough for Bulstrode to tell her the pretty story. ”

“ What a pity she paints at all! What difference, after all, does it make what she does? She's so pretty and feminine!" She was a clinging, sweet creature, and the walk and the flower debauch he permitted himself, the long quiet hours of companionship with this lovely girl in the atelier, illumined, accentuated, and intensified Bulstrode's already fatuous appreciation of the spring in Paris. ”

“ From the floors below came the clear, bright sound of the Hungarian music in an American cake-walk and the odor of cigars and wines and the distinct suggestion of good things to eat came tempting their nostrils.
As Bulstrode followed the brilliant woman, a sense of defeat came over him and with less conviction he repeated:
"I am satisfied, but you, my friend, are not."
"Oh," shrugged Mary Falconer desperately, "you know I've no right to think, or feel, or criticise! I never pretend to run people's lives or to act the benefactor or to take the place of Fate." ”

“ Why should he suppose Jimmy so unlike the rest of his set? More scrupulous, more sinless than other men—than himself? He couldn't answer his own question, but he did so think of Bulstrode, and since his late house party had believed that Jimmy cared for Mrs. Falconer. The lady at The Dials was certainly not she.
Bulstrode, in the shadow of this delinquence, surrounded certainly in the mind of the Duke by an atmosphere of intrigue, became very human, rather consolingly human. In their mutual intercourse the Duke had felt himself living in a clearer atmosphere than he usually breathed. ”

“ The Duchess, who had been working, dropped her bit of muslin and looked, with her cherry lips parted and her great serious eyes, for all the world like a lady in a gift book. Her face was eighteenth century and child-like.
Bulstrode nodded. "Oh, yes, you've got so easily the upper hand, the very least of you, you know, over the best of us. It's such an unfair supremacy. You've got such a clever knowledge of little things, such a sense of the scale of the feelings, and you certainly make the very most of your power over us all. ”

“ The little fire had been renewed, and a pleasant warmth was diffused through the lofty hall. Sam Trotter, under Bob Skinny’s direction, brought candles, in tall silver candlesticks, and put them on the [257] round mahogany table in the corner by the chimney-piece. Bulstrode was lumbering about the hall with his hands in his pockets. Skelton walked up to the fireplace and seated himself, with a cigar and a book, as if unconscious of Bulstrode’s presence. By degrees, Bulstrode’s walk grew stealthy; then he seated himself on the opposite side of the hearth and gazed absently into the fire. ”

“ A few cheap casts, a few yards of mustard-toned burlaps, some Botticelli and Manet photographs, a mangy divan, and a couple of chairs were the furnishings. It had been impossible for Bulstrode to pass indifferently the venders of flowers in the festive, brilliant streets, and great bunches of giroflé, hyacinths, and narcissi overflowed the earthenware pitchers and vases with which the studio was plentifully supplied. The soft, sharp fragrance rose above the shut-in odor of the atelier, and, while Miss Desprey worked, her patron looked at her across waves of spring perfume. ”

“ Bulstrode would have done so now that he was face to face with his quixotic folly, but his cab had been heard as well as his steps on the walk, and the door was opened by Miss Desprey herself. The girl's colorless face, her eyes spoiled with tears, and a pretty, sad dignity, which became her well, struck her friend with the sincerity and depth of her grief, and as the good gentleman shook hands with her he realized that less than ever in the world could he add a featherweight of grief to the burden of this helpless creature. ”

“ Bulstrode likes—reveres you, as he does all good and charming women, but he is undoubtedly afraid of women. He will probably take up his quarters in the wing, and only prowl about the library. But you and I and Lewis will be very happy. The boy loves you, and, Sylvia,” continued Skelton, with his sweetest eloquence of voice and look, “you have no conception of how he longs for affection. He is very proud and sensitive, and—poor little soul!—he has no friends but you and me and Bulstrode, I think.” ”

“ He sniffed the odor of a familiar brand of cigar, and before he had quite plumbed the melancholy of the place to its depths, Jimmy Bulstrode had sunned out of one of the inner rooms, and the grasp of the friendly hand and the sound of the cheerful voice struck a chord in Westboro' that shook him.
"I've been like a fiend possessed," he said to Jimmy, in the evening when they found themselves once more before the fire. "I've scarcely known what I've been doing, or why; but I know one thing, and that is that I'm the most wretched man alive." ”

“ She had on a woman's bodice, a long flounced skirt pinned up to keep her from tripping. Her head was adorned by a torn straw hat, also contrived and created for the coquetry of maturity.
"Monsieur is so good," she began in a flute-like voice. "I have come to thank monsieur with all my heart."
Bulstrode looked toward Prosper for enlightenment, but that individual had cleverly disappeared.
"To thank me, my child? But for what?"
"Why, for the eggs and butter and sugar that monsieur was so good as to send me. I have made the cake. It is beautiful! ”