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قراءة كتاب Peter Binney: A Novel

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‏اللغة: English
Peter Binney: A Novel

Peter Binney: A Novel

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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endearment enjoyed by the late Mr. Higginbotham) "sitting under the Achilles Statue in a plum-coloured gown with lettuce-green revers;" to have cards of invitation pouring in, every other one illuminated by a title; to regard the London season as something more than the time of year when the days were getting longer and it would soon be time to think about going to the seaside—comfortable as Mrs. Higginbotham's circumstances were, her life had been singularly devoid of these delights.

And this was not all. Mrs. Higginbotham was romantic. She revelled in a love-story. She adored the Apollo-like heroes of her favourite fiction with an ungrudging wealth of admiration, and she envied hardly less the blushing heroines on whom they lavished the stores of their magnificent affections. Mrs. Higginbotham felt that it ought to be the lot of every girl to be a blushing heroine at one time of her life. She felt that she herself had been unjustly deprived of that privilege, although she had been an attractive girl, and, if she read the expression in Peter Binney's eyes rightly, was attractive still. The late Mr. Higginbotham had been a good husband to her, but his actual proposal had been of the "Here I am—Take me if you like—If you don't there are plenty that will, and only too glad to get the chance" order. She had taken him, but he had never satisfied the romantic cravings of her nature. She, on her part, had been a good wife to him, but so far as she was aware he had never, from first to last, regarded her as a heroine, or if he had he had never shown it.

Would Peter Binney do more? Was it too late to hope that a whiff of the fragrant breezes of romance might yet blow upon her? Mrs. Higginbotham scarcely knew. There was a something in the little man that inclined her to think that he would not be averse to dally in the Indian summer of a romantic courtship if she made it quite plain to him that that was what she required; and there was a something, in spite of his diminutive stature and the byegone forty-five years of his successful life, in the fire of his eye and in his erect and proud bearing, that whispered to Mrs. Higginbotham's heart that she might, by guarding the sensation with extreme care, bring herself to regard him as a very good substitute for the youthful adorer who it was almost too much to hope would come forward at this time of day.

While these questions passed through her mind, Mrs. Higginbotham went on talking, and Mr. Binney, answering her without knowing in the least what she was talking about, mentally braced himself up for the proposal he was about to make. At last he broke into the middle of one of Mrs. Higginbotham's sentences, and said in a firm and resolute voice, "Mrs. Higginbotham, ma'am."

Mrs. Higginbotham saw that the time had come, and gave up the struggle.

"Yes, Mr. Binney?" she said in as cool a tone as she could muster.

"I am not so young as I was, ma'am," said Mr. Binney.

"We are none of us that," said Mrs. Higginbotham. "At least not people at our time of life."

"You have no reason to complain, ma'am," said Mr. Binney gallantly.

"My heart is young," said Mrs. Higginbotham, greatly pleased at the compliment, "and if I am not very much mistaken, yours is also."

"I hope it is," said Mr. Binney, greatly pleased in his turn; "and on that account I have a proposal to make to you, ma'am, which I hope you will consider favourably."

"I'm sure I shall do that, whatever it is," said Mrs. Higginbotham comfortably.

"I hope so," said Mr. Binney again. "The fact is, ma'am, that I have long regarded you with feelings of interest, which have in the course of time developed into feelings of affection. I can scarcely hope that those feelings are returned, but I should wish to ask, ma'am, if there is any chance in the near or distant future that they might be."

"Oh, Mr. Binney!" exclaimed Mrs. Higginbotham with a lively recollection of the heroines of fiction. "This is so sudden."

"It is, ma'am," said Mr. Binney. "I am aware of that. This sort of thing must be sudden at some time or another, if it is to result in bus—I mean if anything is to come of it. I don't wish to press you for an answer yet. I merely wish to lay my ideas before you. I might say that I wish to marry again in order to obtain those advantages which—er—which come from marrying again. I might say that I want an agreeable companion to sit at the head of my table, to entertain me with her society in my leisure hours, and to act in the capacity of mother to my only son. I do want that, but that is not all. I have worked hard all my life, ma'am, and am now a comparatively rich man. But I have had very little pleasure in my life. I married my first wife to please her. I want to marry my second to please myself. And I want above all to impart into the affair some of that—er—glamour, which, in my opinion, should envelop all courtship. I therefore come to you, ma'am, an agreeable and charming woman, and ask you, not to accept me as a man of good position able to offer you a comfortable home, which I am aware you have already, but as a man who, although no longer young, is younger than a good many people, and who loves you for yourself alone, and would like to take an opportunity of proving it."

Could Mrs. Higginbotham believe her ears? If Peter Binney had asked her to marry him in the way he had suggested, and scouted, she would have accepted him with a sigh for lost illusions now no longer tenable. But it really seemed as if that romance for which the poor lady had so longed was going to be opened up for her, and an ardent swain, in the person of Peter Binney, Manufacturer of Poultry Food, was ready to throw himself at her feet and plead for her favour. Mrs. Higginbotham could scarcely yet grasp the happiness that seemed to be dawning on her horizon.

"Do you really love me for myself, Mr. Binney?" she asked with faltering lips.

"Say Peter," corrected Mr. Binney.

"Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham submissively, with a delicious thrill.

"Yes, I do," said that gentleman. "But I don't want you to accept me in a hurry, you know," he added hastily. "I want you to try me, to prove me, to see what I'm made of." He slapped his little breast with a determined air, and looked round the room as if in search of some object by means of which he might be proved on the spot.

Mrs. Higginbotham might have replied that she knew him tolerably well already, having met him with some frequency for the last twenty years. But his attitude caused her such a degree of pleasure that she was by no means prepared to spoil the sensation by reminding him of that fact. At the same time she was a little nervous and flurried. She had all the will in the world to prove him, but she didn't quite know how to set about it. If there had been a crusade handy she might have sent him off to that, but she could think of no nineteenth century substitute on the spur of the moment. Mr. Binney had been a Volunteer in his youth, as he had often told her, but he was one no longer, so she could not set him to watch his accoutrements all night in a church. Besides, Mr. Binney went to chapel, and the minister wouldn't have liked it. She didn't really quite know what he did want, but fortunately Mr. Binney himself came to the rescue and made himself a little clearer.

"Now, Mrs. Higginbotham," he began. "By-the-bye, may I call you Martha?"

"Yes, do," said Mrs. Higginbotham.

"Now, my dear Martha," began Mr. Binney again, "what you have got to do is to tell me what in your opinion the behaviour of an ideal lover should be, and what I have got to do is to endeavour to the best of my ability to act up to your opinion."

"Well, Peter," began Mrs. Higginbotham, "I must confess that I have always wished that I had had in my youth a devoted lover who should be something of a hero."

"Quite so, quite so," assented Mr. Binney with an energetic nod. "I shall do my best to be that, my very

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