She lived in the present. To look back to the past
was to recall the image of George Fairfax, who seemed somehow interwoven
with her girlhood; to look forward to the future was to set her face
towards a land hidden in clouds and darkness. She had positively nothing to
hope for.
Mr. Granger took life very calmly. He knew that his wife did not love him;
and he was too proud a man to lay himself out to win her love, even if he
had known how to set about a task so incongruous with the experience of his
life. He was angry with himself for having ever been weak enough to think
that this girlish creature--between whom and himself there stretched a gulf
of thirty years--could by any possibility be beguiled into loving him. Of
course, she had married him for his money. There was not one among his
guests who would not have thought him a fool for supposing that it could be
otherwise, or for expecting more from her than a graceful fulfilment of the
duties of her position.
He had little ground for complaint. She was gentle and obedient,
deferential in her manner to him before society, amiable always; he only
knew that she did not love him--that was all. But Daniel Granger was a
proud man, and this knowledge was a bitter thing to him. There were hours
in his life when he sat alone in his own room--that plainly-furnished
chamber which was half study, half dressing-room--withdrawing himself from
his guests under pretence of having business-letters to write to his people
at Bradford and Leeds; sat with his open desk before him, and made no
attempt to write; sat brooding over thoughts of his young wife, and
regretting the folly of his marriage.
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