A Prologue To Love by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page B

enormous. I have lived as I wished to live, John, since the war. This is my house; George and I lived in a very ugly old barn which his parents left him; I loathed it. I paid twenty thousand dollars for this wonderful place.”
     
    He could not believe this profligacy, even from Cynthia. He had known she was extravagant. But this was beyond belief. His hands clenched on the arms of his chair. She began to laugh at him, full of delight and gaiety.
     
    “You resemble a waxwork of yourself!” she cried with genuine mirth. “Now you won’t be tormenting me all the time to marry you, dear John! A penniless woman!”
     
    “And how long do you think what you have left will last you, Cynthia?”
     
    She made a light gesture. “A year, at the most.”
     
    “You have a son. Timothy. He is ten years old.”
     
    “And what will become of him? I do not worry. For before the last of my fortune has run out I will marry. It may surprise you, John, but I have many suitors, and I’ll marry the richest and live as I like to live.”
     
    “Marry me, Cynthia,” he said, and leaned toward her.
     
    Her face became very strange, and she looked at him in silence for a long time. When she spoke her voice was quiet. “John, I did you an injustice. I thought that at least part of the reason for your marrying Ann was her money.”
     
    “It was. I am not a liar except when it will serve my purpose. But I loved Ann too. Not as I am now afraid I love you, but still I loved her.”
     
    His cold blue eyes had lost their mercilessness. He even stretched out a hand to her pleadingly. “Cynthia, I want you. Why? I don’t know. But, seeing you now, I understand that what I felt for Ann was as nothing to what I feel for you. You — you are a lightness in my life; I can’t put you out of my mind. You are reckless and frivolous; you are also intelligent, which Ann was not. Do you know what my life has been?” His voice suddenly took on icy violence. “I tell you, it has been unbearable — ”
     
    “Even with Ann?” she asked gently. “Oh, even with Ann?”
     
    “I had Ann for four years. Only four years. Before that, and since, there has been nothing for me.”
     
    He pressed his lips together. “I never told anyone; I never told Ann. I shall not tell you. I need you to make me forget.”
     
    She pitied him for the first time and was astonished at her pity. Who could feel compassion for John Ames? She laced her fingers together and looked down at them reflectively.
     
    “You’re very mysterious, John. You always were. I think that’s part of your fascination.”
     
    “Then I’ll continue to be fascinating; I’ll never tell you. Well, Cynthia?”
     
    She shook her head slowly. “John, I’ve told you a thousand times. Your way of life is abhorrent to me. I have no objection to your money; I suppose some of the gentlemen who want to marry me have smears on their cash, too, one way or another.
     
    “Our individual ways of life, John, are incompatible. I love my life and detest yours. Ann and I were brought up in a gracious and comfortable household, with every warm luxury possible, and laughter and dancing and many affectionate friends. Then you and Ann were married. She went to live in those appalling houses of yours, and her life became stringent and arduous, in spite of old Kate’s efforts to relieve the physical misery. I asked Ann one time how she could endure it. And she said, poor darling, that it was the kind of life you wished and that it made you happy, and so it was her wish and her happiness. I’m not like that, John. Perhaps I’m more selfish than Ann, but I shudder at the thought of living as Ann lived. It is possible I don’t — love — you as Ann loved you. But I love you enough not to make you miserable. And you’d be miserable with me, with my house, my friends, my way of life, and my appetites. Isn’t this house beautiful? But you never thought it was. You were frank enough to tell me it was