Mrs. Doria

“ Pendean: I'm jealous of Signor Doria."
"Jealous! Why, Mr. Brendon—what have you to envy him?"
"You would not be likely to guess," he replied, though in truth Jenny had already done so accurately enough. "I am sure that if Doria is a gentleman I need not be jealous, seeing what is in my thought cannot be spoken to you by any man for many a long day to come. And yet to envy him is natural; and when you ask what I envy, I will be honest and tell you. Fate has given him the privilege of lightening the cruel burden placed upon your shoulders. ”

“ The grand danger would be that Doria should find himself alone with Albert, even for a moment. That is the situation to circumvent and avoid at any cost. Let nothing induce you to lose sight of one or other; and even should Doria obviously make a run for it before I return, don't be deceived by that, or go after him. He may adopt any ruse to get you guessing when I have gone—that is, if he suspects me of some immediate step. But if I go without leading him to feel any very grave suspicion as to my object in going, we may surprise him before his own stroke is struck. ”

“ He reflected uncomfortably that Mark Brendon must hear every word about to pass; but there was no help for that.
"Our Italian way is to approach the parents of the loved one," explained Doria. "To win you is to be far on my way, for you stand to her in the place of parent. Is it not so? She cannot live alone. She was not meant by God to be a single woman, or a widow woman. There is a saying in my tongue, 'She who is born beautiful is born married.' I terribly fear that somebody else will come." ”

“ I grant she loved her husband dearly enough and he made a pretty deep mark on her character, for she's different from what she was as a girl. But there's very little doubt that Doria's growing awful fond of her—and when that sort loves a woman he generally finds she's not unwilling to meet him halfway. I believe now that my niece can't help caring for the man, but all the time she's secretly ashamed of herself—yes, heartily ashamed—for finding another in her mind only six months after the death of Pendean. ”

“ Doria envisaged failure) , she might easily transfer her softness to squires of lower degree. Clare had always been blindly obedient to her mother (Adrian called them Mrs. Doria Battledoria and the fair Shuttlecockiana) , and her mother accepted in this blind obedience the text of her entire character. It is difficult for those who think very earnestly for their children to know when their children are thinking on their own account. The exercise of their volition we construe as revolt. ”

“ He guessed to what Doria possibly referred and felt concern but no surprise. The other continued.
"Ambition may succumb before beauty. Ancestral castles may crumble before the tide of love, as a child's sand building before the sea. Too true!"
Doria sighed and looked at Brendon closely. The Italian stood in a tight-fitting jersey of brown wool, a very picturesque figure against his dark background. The other had nothing to say and prepared to descend. He guessed what had happened and was concerned rather with Jenny Pendean than the romantic personality before him. ”

“ Doria sighed again—and a wanly indulgent smile played about her lips.
"You two dear people are so sensible, that it makes me almost angry to see how you can't begin to understand Adrian. As a man, of course I have a certain influence over him. But as an artist—how can I? He's a thing apart from me altogether. I know perfectly well that thousands of artists' wives wreck their happiness through sheer, stupid jealousy of their husbands' art. I'm not such a narrow-minded, contemptible woman." ”

“ The Marquise Palavicini from Genoa, her daughter-in-law the Princesse Doria, sir Francis Burdett, and Colonel Leicester Stanhope, dined with us yesterday. The marquise Palavicini is a very sensible and agreeable woman, and the Princesse Doria is very pretty and amiable. Like most of her countrywomen, this young and attractive person is wholly free from that affectation which deteriorates from so many of the women of other countries; and the simplicity of her manner, which is as remote from gaucherie as it is from affectation, invests her with a peculiar charm. ”

“ Thousands who knew him not were looking forward to Adrian Boldero's new book. We, who loved him, were peculiarly interested. Somehow or other we had not touched before so intimately on the subject. To my surprise he frowned and snapped impatient fingers.
"I haven't told Doria anything about it. It isn't my way. My work's too personal a thing, even for Doria. She understands. I know some fellows tell their plots to any and everybody—and others, if they don't do that, lay bare their artistic souls to those near and dear to them. ”

“ So he was and, of course, he knows he can't do that with Jenny's twenty thousand; but love casts out a good many things besides fear. It blights ambition—for the time being anyway—and handicaps a man on every side in the race for life. All Doria wants now is Jenny Pendean, and he'll get her if I'm a judge. I wouldn't mind too much either, if they could stop along with me and go on as we're going; but of course that wouldn't happen. As it is Doria has come to be a friend. He does all he's paid to do and a lot more ”

“ He may have been one of the Wesleyan sort, like such a lot of the Cornish; he may have been a kill-joy, too; but whether he was or not, he hadn't quite converted her in the time, and what I'm seeing now, I judge, is the young woman slowly coming back to herself under the influence of this Latin chap. He's cunning, too. He knows how to tickle her vanity, for even she has got a bit of womanly conceit in her, though less vain of her wonderful face no woman could be. But Doria has taken good care to hint his ambition is well lost for love ”

“ Their minds move far more swiftly than ours. They are more hungry to get everything possible out of life. Doria is a child in many ways; but a delightful, poetical child. I think England rather chills him; yet he vows there are no rich women in Italy. He longs for Italy all the same. I expect he will go home again presently. He will leave Uncle Ben in the spring—so he confides to me; but do not whisper it, for my uncle thinks highly of him and would hate to lose him. He can do everything and anticipates our wishes and whims in the most magical way. ”

“ Doria is aroused by a hunting-party who have risen so early that they seem to have forgotten to take off their nightcaps, to which the Italian hood, as worn by the Haymarket hunters, bears an obstinate resemblance. The Prince discovers his wife has fled, and orders his chasseurs to divert their attention from the game they had purposed to ride to cover for, and to hunt up the missing Nina.
“In the deep recesses of a wood” Spinola and Doria meet, the latter having, by some instinct, found out his pseudo-friend’s treachery; of course they fight: Doria falls ”

“ Now I'll tell you how the cat's jumping. She's jumping in the dark—I'll allow that; but what I seem to see dimly is this: that Giuseppe Doria knows a great deal more about the man in the red waistcoat than we do. I hardly think Doria is the man to murder my old friend; but I'm not so sure that, if somebody else wanted to take the step, Doria would prevent him.
"If Albert disappeared, you've got to remember that Doria's wife would be the worldly gainer. Why anybody should want to kill Albert to put money into Jenny's pocket I cannot say. ”

“ I don't wish to come between my niece and her happiness, and I can't honestly say that Doria wouldn't be a good husband, though good husbands are rare everywhere and never rarer than in Italy, I believe. He might change his mind after they'd been wed a year and hanker for his ambitions again and money to carry them out. Jenny will have plenty some day, for there's poor Bob's money sooner or late, I suppose, and there'll be mine and her Uncle Albert's so far as I know. ”

“ He returned to Genoa for good in 1555, and being very old and infirm he gave over the command of the galleys to his great-nephew Giovanni Andrea Doria, who conducted an expedition against Tripoli, but proved even more unsuccessful than his uncle had been at Algiers, barely escaping with his life. Andrea Doria died on the 25th of November 1560, leaving his estates to Giovanni Andrea. The family of Doria-Pamphilii-Landi (q.v.) is descended from him and bears his title of prince of Melfi. Doria was a man of indomitable energy and a great admiral. ”

“ She, however, declines putting the poison to any such use; but, nevertheless, honours Spinola’s draught, by accepting it. The villain expresses himself extremely grateful for her condescension, and exits, to make way for Doria.
Directly he appears, you at once perceive that he has done something exceedingly naughty, for his countenance is covered with remorse and a certain white powder which is the stage specific for pallor. The lady complains of being unwell, and her husband kindly advises her to go to bed. ”

“ Doria’s father dies, and Nina’s consents to his marriage; so that we see them, at the opening of the third act, the picture of connubial bliss, in a garden belonging to the Duke’s palace at Genoa, exchanging sentiments which would be doubtless extremely tender if they were quite intelligible. A great deal is said about genius being like love; which gives rise to a simile touching a rose-bud in a poor poet’s window, and other incoherencies quite natural for persons to utter who are supposed to be in love. This peaceful scene is interrupted by an alarm of war ”

“ Doria was equal to twenty, and they would proclaim the diverse ways with which maidenhood and womanhood took disappointment, while the surrounding Forey girls and other females of the family assembly were expected to develop the finer shades and tapering edges of an agitation to which no woman could be cold. ”

“ What is more, I'm not sure that he didn't remember me."
"We are in fear," continued Doria. "He has not been yet to his brother, but he is near."
"How can you tell that he is near, if he has not yet been to his brother?"
"Thus we know it. I go every morning early to Strete Farm on the hills above us for milk and butter. I go this morning and they have an ugly story. Last night a man entered Strete Farm and took food and drink. The farmer hears him and comes upon him sitting eating in the kitchen—a big man with a red head and a red mustache and a red waistcoat. The man, when he sees Mr. ”

“ He handed her the package.
"I can't look at them now. Say, Dorian—" she came out nearer to him—"They are here."
"Who, mother?"
"Mrs. Brown and her daughter. They got a chance to ride out this afternoon, so they did not wait until tomorrow. Lucky I cleaned up this morning. Mildred is not a bit well, and she is lying down now. Don't make any more noise than you can help."
"Gee—but, mother, gosh!" He was very much disturbed.
"They are dear, good people. They know we are simple farmers. Just you wash yourself and take off those dirty overalls before you come in. And then you just behave yourself. ”

“ His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth – I can't believe anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I don't know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to theirs? ”

“ I have not always acted toward you as one who loves you. I don't know why—lay it to my stupidity. But, Carlia, I do love you. I have always loved you. Yes, ever since we were children playing in the fields and by the creek and the ditches. I know now what that feeling was. I loved you then, I love you now."
The girl arose mechanically from her chair, reached out as if for support to the mantle. "Why, Oh, why did you not tell me before—before"—she cried, then swayed as if to a fall. Dorian caught her and placed her back in the seat. ”

“ Reed strength and a restfulness that he had not known for years. Unconscious of the shadow still hanging over the home, Dorry, prettier, brighter, and sweeter every day, was the delight of the household; her very faults to their partial eyes added to her charm; for, according to Lydia, "they were uncommon innocent and funny, Miss Dorry's ways were." In fact, the young lady, who had a strong will of her own, would have been spoiled to a certainty but for her scorn of affectation, her love of truth, and genuine faithfulness to whatever she believed to be right. ”

“ There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little whitewashing."
"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him as he spoke.
Hallward started and then frowned. "Dorian engaged to be married!" he cried. "Impossible!"
"It is perfectly true."
"To whom?"
"To some little actress or other."
"I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible."
"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear Basil."
"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry." ”