"Meredith, George - The Gentleman of Fifty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meredith George)

damsel, until by great good luck we were steadied and preserved from the
same misfortune which had befallen her parents. She laughed and blushed,
and we tottered asunder.

'Would you have talked metaphysics to me in the water, Mr. Pollingray?'

Alice was here guilty of one of those naughty sort of innocent speeches
smacking of Eve most strongly; though, of course, of Eve in her best
days.

I took the rudder lines to steer against the sculling of her single
scull, and was Adam enough to respond to temptation: 'I should perhaps
have been grateful to your charitable construction of it as being
metaphysics.'

She laughed colloquially, to fill a pause. It had not been coquetry:
merely the woman unconsciously at play. A man is bound to remember the
seniority of his years when this occurs, for a veteran of ninety and a
worn out young debauchee will equally be subject to it if they do not
shun the society of the sex. My long robust health and perfect self-
reliance apparently tend to give me unguarded moments, or lay me open to
fitful impressions. Indeed there are times when I fear I have the heart
of a boy, and certainly nothing more calamitous can be conceived,
supposing that it should ever for one instant get complete mastery of my
head. This is the peril of a man who has lived soberly. Do we never
know when we are safe? I am, in reflecting thereupon, positively
prepared to say that if there is no fool like what they call an old fool
(and a man in his prime, who can be laughed at, is the world's old fool)
there is wisdom in the wild oats theory, and I shall come round to my
nephew's way of thinking: that is, as far as Master Charles by his acting
represents his thinking. I shall at all events be more lenient in my
judgement of him, and less stern in my allocutions, for I shall have no
text to preach from.

We picked up the hat and the scull in one of the little muddy bays of our
brown river, forming an amphitheatre for water-rats and draped with great
dockleaves, nettle-flowers, ragged robins, and other weeds for which the
learned young lady gave the botanical names. It was pleasant to hear her
speak with the full authority of absolute knowledge of her subject. She
has intelligence. She is decidedly too good for Charles, unless he
changes his method of living.

'Shall we row on?' she asked, settling her arms to work the pair of
sculls.

'You have me in your power,' said I, and she struck out. Her shape is
exceedingly graceful; I was charmed by the occasional tightening in of
her lips as she exerted her muscle, while at intervals telling me of her
race with one of her boastful younger brothers, whom she had beaten.
I believe it is only when they are using physical exertion that the eyes