"James, Henry - The Altar of the Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (James Henry)

to look at something else, came nearer, glanced at him, started, and
exclaimed--a circumstance the effect of which was at first only to leave
Stransom staring--staring back across the months at the different face, the
wholly other face the poor man had shown him last, the blurred, ravaged mask
bent over the open grave by which they had stood together. Creston was not in
mourning now; he detached his arm from his companion's to grasp the hand of the
older friend. He colored as well as smiled in the strong light of the shop when
Stransom raised a tentative hat to the lady. Stransom had just time to see that
she was pretty before he found himself gaping at a fact more portentous. "My
dear fellow, let me make you acquainted with my wife."
Creston had blushed and stammered over it, but in half a minute, at the rate we
live in polite society, it had practically become, for Stransom, the mere memory
of a shock. They stood there and laughed and talked; Stransom had instantly
whisked the shock out of the way, to keep it for private consumption. He felt
himself grimacing, he heard himself exaggerating the usual, but he was conscious
that he had turned slightly faint. That new woman, that hired performer, Mrs.
Creston? Mrs. Creston had been more living for him than any woman but one. This
lady had a face that shone as publicly as the jeweler's window, and in the happy
candor with which she wore her monstrous character there was an effect of gross
immodesty. The character of Paul Creston's wife, thus attributed to her, was
monstrous for reasons which Stransom could see that his friend perfectly knew
that he knew. The happy pair had just arrived from America, and Stransom had not
needed to be told this to divine the nationality of the lady. Somehow it
deepened the foolish air that her husband's confused cordiality was unable to
conceal. Stransom recalled that he had heard of poor Creston's having, while his
bereavement was still fresh, gone to the United States for what people in such
predicaments call a little change. He had found the little change; indeed, he
had brought the little change back: it was the little change that stood there
and that, do what he would, he couldn't, while he showed those high front teeth
of his, look like anything but a conscious ass about. They were going into the
shop, Mrs. Creston said, and she begged Mr. Stransom to come with them and help
to decide. He thanked her, opening his watch and pleading an engagement for
which he was already late, and they parted while she shrieked into the fog,
"Mind now you come to see me right away!" Creston had had the delicacy not to
suggest that, and Stransom hoped it hurt him somewhere to hear her scream it to
all the echoes.
He felt quite determined, as he walked away, never in his life to go near her.
She was perhaps a human being, but Creston oughtn't to have shown her without
precautions, oughtn't indeed to have shown her at all. His precautions should
have been those of a forger or a murderer, and the people at home would never
have mentioned extradition. This was a wife for foreign service or purely
external use; a decent consideration would have spared her the injury of
comparisons. Such were the first reflections of George Stransom's amazement; but
as he sat alone that night--these were particular hours that he always passed
alone--the harshness dropped from them and left only the pity. He could spend an
evening with Kate Creston, if the man to whom she had given everything couldn't.
He had not known her twenty years, and she was the only woman for whom he might
perhaps have been unfaithful. She was all cleverness and sympathy and charm; her
house had been the very easiest in all the world, and her friendship the very
firmest. Without accidents he had loved her, without accidents everyone had