Mrs. Selwyn

“ Mrs. Selwyn closed her eyes. [Pg 142] "Hilton, every day you have less consideration for my feelings."
"He'll be a fair size stretched," said the old man, poking with his stick. "I'm sorry about that pullet. Hold that lamp straight, Maud. Ye'll have the glass smoked. Some of you had better get this mess cleaned before the ants come. Shall we go back to the verandah, Mrs. Selwyn? Snakes don't get through the fly-netting."
They persuaded Selwyn back to everyday, and Power and he were mourners at the funeral. While they went about the ceremony, Maud and King wandered a little way into the dark. ”

“ Selwyn in great passion seizes an umbrella to strike at Selwyn; he avoids the blow, and Blithers entering C., quickly at moment, still with tall hat in hand, receives it full on top of his head. Blithers turns and flies in dismay at his reception. Mrs. Selwyn faints. Dibbs dances with joy at everybody’s discomfiture. ”

“ Selwyn is very obliging, and, in every respect, treats me as an equal; but she is contented with behaving well herself, and does not, with a distinguishing politeness, raise and support me with others. Yet I mean not to blame her, for I know she is sincerely my friend; but the fact is, she is herself so much occupied in conversation, when in company, that she has neither leisure nor thought to attend to the silent. ”

“ Mrs. Selwyn has, doubtless, acquainted you with the many motives which, independent of my eagerness, require it to be speedy; suffer, therefore, its acceleration, and generously complete my felicity, by endeavouring to suffer it without repugnance. ”

“ Selwyn to me. “Fanny, dear, is not that your Papa coming back? Get up and see, that's a dear girl”
“It is all this horrid India,” repeated Mrs. Selwyn. “Children learn about things which girls sixteen and seventeen know nothing of at home.”
“Yes,” I said, “I believe that's it, Mrs. Selwyn, but I always think it best not to appear to notice that they do; it should be the object of everybody to try and keep impure thoughts out of young persons' minds, but especially out of those of girls.” ”

“ He reached home as he was growing unpleasantly hot. Spying Mrs. Selwyn reading on the shadiest verandah, he made for her and threw himself into a canvas chair close by. The [Pg 217] bodyguard flopped upon the floor at his feet, and the party fell to heaving up and down. The sudden assault caused Mrs. Selwyn to look over the edge of her book.
"Hilton, how soon are you going to learn a little consideration for others?" she said sharply. "No single other man I could name would throw himself and two smelling dogs down in the one spot we are trying to keep cool." ”

“ Selwyn is well again. So some of us,—Dr. Rosencrans, Dr. Race, Dr. Shumway, Dr. Crandall, Miss Pierson, Miss Wayne, and oh, a whole bunch of nurses and friends, got up a collection and bought her a splendid new machine like she wanted, and when she goes home she will find it waiting for her."
[Pg 197]
"Doesn't she know?"
"Not a whisper. It's always to be a secret who gave it to her. We feared that she might feel as if we thought she had been begging, if she knew the names of the senders,—she is so extremely sensitive. ”

“ Selwyn's original feeling of exasperation mellowed to one of genuine pity in contemplation of her solitary life—a life directed by a restless energy that only grew in intensity with the deepening realisation of her purposelessness. ”

“ Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute.
The party was over.
Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery and down the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange of badinage again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, he retorting in kind.
"Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy," she concluded.
"Not as dreadful as the chorus," he remarked, wincing.
"You're exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look like one now—so sheepish! I've seen Gerald attempt to avoid admonition in exactly that fashion." ”

“ Margaret Selwyn was a graduate of one of the bluest women's colleges between the two seas, and, more than that, she had a background of home culture and refinement, having parents of brains. She came from college with those acquirements, which shine exteriorly, and had an incurved back, and was "tailor made" from head to heel, yet having within her all that gentleness and greatness of heart which make a woman better than anything else, not even excluding the strawberry upon which the Right Reverend Bishop pronounced such a sincere eulogy. ”

“ Says he, knowing Selwyn’s penchant for horrors, ‘George, were you at the execution of my namesake?’ Selwyn looks him over in his droll way from head to foot and says, ‘Lard, no! I never attend rehearsals, Fox.’”
“’Tis the first he has missed for years then. 6 Selwyn is as regular as Jack Ketch himself. Your throw, Montagu,” put in O’Sullivan.
“Seven’s the main, and by the glove of Helen I crab. Saw ever man such cursed luck?” I cried.
“’Tis vile. Luck’s mauling you fearfully to-night,” agreed Volney languidly. ”

“ And, as Selwyn said nothing: "For Heaven's sake make up your mind to enjoy your life! You are fitted to enjoy it. Get that absurd notion out of your head that you're done for—that you've no home life in prospect, no family life, no children—"
Selwyn turned sharply, but the other went on: "You can swear at me if you like, but you've no business to go through the world cuddling your own troubles closer and closer and squinting at everybody out of disenchanted eyes. It's selfish, for one thing; you're thinking altogether too much about yourself." ”

“ If human beings could be made pets, like Miss Tabitha's snake or toad, Selwyn would have fondled a hangman. He loved the noble art of execution, and was a connoisseur of the execution of the art. In childhood he must have decapitated his rocking-horse, hanged his doll in a miniature gallows, and burnt his baubles at mimic stakes. ”

“ A little later, Nina sat up in the hammock, daintily effacing the traces of tears. Selwyn was saying: "If this is so, that Ruthven man has got to stand by her. Where could she go—if such trouble is to come upon her? To whom can she turn if not to him? He is responsible for her—doubly so, if her condition is to be—that! By every law of manhood he is bound to stand by her now; by every law of decency and humanity he cannot desert her now. If she does these—these indiscreet things—and if he knows she is not altogether mentally responsible—he cannot fail to stand by her! ”

“ Not because they're ours and we happen to be your own people—" he checked himself and the smile faded as he laid his big ruddy hand on Selwyn's shoulder;—"your own people, Phil. Do you understand? . . . And if I have not ventured to say anything about—what has happened—you understand that, too, don't you? You know I'm just as loyal to you as Nina is—as it is natural and fitting that your own people should be. Only a man finds it difficult to convey his—his—"
"Don't say 'sympathies'!" cut in Selwyn nervously. ”

“ Neville, manager of Surprise, November was accepted with small complaint. Many a dawn of day, every set of sun found Selwyn striding like an honest man into the bush. Lean and pinched he showed at early morning, hat tilted jauntily forward, cigarette end pushed out below his clipped moustache, trusty gun under hooked right arm. Leaner still he looked at evening, as he followed his long shadow across the ground, marching towards a gully in the hills, where one might blunder on the Lord knew what—kangaroo, wallaby, or even a python. A python, be Gad! at one's very back door! ”

“ Returning from their gallop, Miss Erroll had very little to say. Selwyn, too, was silent and absent-minded. The girl glanced furtively at him from time to time, not at all enlightened. Man, naturally, was to her an unknown quantity. In fact she had no reason to suspect him of being anything more intricate than the platitudinous dance or dinner partner in black and white, or any frock-coated entity in the afternoon, or any flannelled individual at the nets or on the links or cantering about the veranda of club, casino, or cottage, in evident anxiety to be considerate and agreeable. ”

“ Selwyn brought it. "I was commissioned to say that Nina couldn't wait—dowagers and cakes and all that, you know. Won't you sit down? It's rather messy and the cat is the guest of honour."
"We have three guests of honour," said Drina; "you, Eileen, and Kit-Ki. Uncle Philip, mother has forbidden me to speak of it, so I shall tell her and be punished—but wouldn't it be splendid if Aunt Alixe were only here with us?"
Selwyn turned sharply, every atom of colour gone; and the child smiled up at him. "Wouldn't it?" she pleaded. ”

“ Selwyn's companions—all men of wit, more or less, affirmed him to be the most amusing man of his day, and that was all the part he had to play. No real wit ever hopes to talk for posterity; and written wit is of a very different character to the more sparkling, if less solid, creations of a moment.
We have seen Selwyn in many points of view, not all very creditable to him; first, expelled from Oxford for blasphemy; next, a professed gambler and the associate of men who led fashion in those days, it is true, but then it was very bad fashion; then as a lover of hangmen, a wit and a lounger. ”

“ On the last day of September, Caroline slipped out, and followed me to Madame Gironac’s; Mr Selwyn was ready with the licence. We walked to church, the ceremony was performed, and Mr Selwyn took his bride down to his father’s house at Kew. The old judge was somewhat prepared for the event, and received her very graciously. Mrs Selwyn and his sisters were partial to Caroline, and followed the example of the judge. Nothing could pass off more quietly or more pleasantly. ”

“ Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.
Mortified, he got to his feet, glanced out into the hallway, and began adjusting his attire.
"No, you don't!" he said mildly, "I decline to perform again. If you want any more wriggling you must accomplish it yourselves. Drina, has your governess—by any unfortunate chance—er—red hair?" ”

“ Only think, mother, Miss Selwyn was prophesying the time when I should be mourning over a departed wife."
"You must not mind Hubert, Miss Selwyn. He is a sad tease, as we all find to our sorrow. He has not had brothers or sisters since his childhood to teach him gentleness."
"Only children are apt to be not very agreeable companions. ”

“ Men looked up, and seeing her, believed once more in life; and hope crept into their hearts. Men in the great shadowy valley murmured like a child in its sleep when a ray of morning sunshine, stealing through the curtains, plays upon its face.
And of the many things which Selwyn learned that day, one was that those ministering angels, those women of limitless spirit and sympathy, have memories of mute, unspoken gratitude, beside which the proudest triumphs of the greatest beauties are but the tawdry, tinsel glory of a pantomime queen. ”

“ The arrangement made it a little easier for Selwyn and Mrs. Ruthven. He talked to his dinner partner until she began to respond in monosyllables, which closed each subject that he opened and wearied him as much as he was boring her. But Bradley Harmon, the man on her right, evidently had better fortune; and presently Selwyn found himself with nobody to talk to, which came as near to embarrassing him as anything could, and which so enraged his hostess that she struck his partner's name from her lists for ever. People were already glancing at him askance in sly amusement or cold curiosity. ”

“ Drina dropped the cat, swept the curly hair from her eyes, and stood up very straight in her kilts and bare knees.
"They don't really mean to be rude," she explained; "they're only children." Then, detecting the glimmering smile in Selwyn's eyes, "But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us who you are because we all would like to know, but we are not going to be ill-bred enough to ask." ”

“ Selwyn rose furiously to his feet. 'This is the end of our friendship,' he said, with his voice almost choking, and his shoulders chafing under the passion which possessed him. 'Your chief has chosen to name me as a reason for keeping you in America, and so it is I who have come between you and Marjory. For that I am sorry. But when you question my loyalty to America—that is the finish.'
Van Derwater had also risen to his feet and with the utmost courtesy listened to Selwyn's outburst. More than ever there was a mystic atmosphere of the Past in his bearing. ”

“ An arm on the back of the buggy, Selwyn looked at me, and in his eyes was that which made me understand he was right. We might as well have it out. "For three years you have refused to marry me, and now you say you are more alone than I. We've been beating the air, been evading something; refusing to face the thing that is keeping us apart. What is it? You know my love for you. But yours for me— You have never told me that you loved me. Look at me, Danny." ”

“ I walked toward my bedroom. At its door I stopped. "I'm sorry, Selwyn, but I'll have to go. The woman is dying."
Selwyn's teeth came together sharply and in his eyes were disapproval and protest. For a half-minute he did not speak, then he faced me.
"If you insist, there's nothing to be said except that I am going with you. Where's your telephone? I'll get a cab."
"Oh no! You must not go." Back to the door, I leaned against it.
"You've never seen things of this kind. They're—they're—"
"No pleasanter for you than for me." ”