Yet how could
he himself go to young Helston? Some men no doubt could have handled
such an incident with dignity. Ashe, with his critical sense for ever
playing on himself and others; with the touch of moral shirking that
belonged to his inmost nature; and, above all, with his half-humorous,
half-bitter consciousness that whoever else might be a hero, he was
none: Ashe, at least, could and would do nothing of the sort. That he
should begin now to play the tyrannous or jealous husband would make him
ridiculous both in his own eyes and other people's.
And yet Kitty must somehow be protected from herself!... Then--as to
politics? Once, in talking with his mother, he had said to her that he
was Kitty's husband first, and a public man afterwards. Was he prepared
now to make the statement with the same simplicity, the same
whole-heartedness?
Involuntarily he moved closer to the bed and looked down on Kitty.
Little, delicate face!--always with something mournful and fretful in
repose.
He loved her surely as much as ever--ah! yes, he loved her. His whole
nature yearned over her, as the wife of his youth, the mother of his
poor boy.
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