Merry Go Round by W. Somerset Maugham Read Free Book Online

hand.
    'I couldn't bear that she should watch me eat three meals a day,' replied his hostess. 'I have a vivid recollection of her dinners: she fed me on husks and acorns, like the prodigal son, and regaled me with accounts of the torment that awaited me in an after-life.'
    The Dean smiled gravely. He looked upon Miss Ley with a kind of affectionate disapproval; and though often he rebuked her for the books she read or for the flippancy of her conversation, took always in good part the irony with which she met his little sermons.
    'You're very uncharitable, Polly,' he said. 'Of course Eliza was a difficult person to live with, but she exacted no more from others than she exacted from herself. I always admired her strong sense of duty; it was very striking at the present time when everyone lives entirely for pleasure.'
    'We may not be so virtuous as our fathers, Algernon,' answered Miss Ley, 'but we're very much easier to live with. After all, forty years ago people were positively insufferable: they spoke their minds, which is a detestable habit; their temper
was abominable, and they drank more than was good for them. I always think my father was typical of his period. When he flew into a passion he called it righteous anger, and when I did anything to which he objected he suffered from – virtuous indignation. D'you know that till I was fifteen I was never allowed to taste butter, which was thought bad both for my figure and my soul? I was brought up exclusively on dripping and Jeremy Taylor. The world was a hazardous path beset with gins and snares; and at every turn and corner were immature volcanoes from which arose sulphurous fumes of hell-fire.'
    'It was an age of tyranny and vapours,' said Frank, 'of old gentlemen who were overbearing and young ladies who swooned.'
    'I'm sure people aren't so good as they used to be,' said Mrs Bassett, glancing at her son, who was much engrossed in a conversation with Mrs Castillyon.
    'They never were,' answered Miss Ley.
    'The perverseness of men would have made an infidel of me,' added the Dean, in his sweet, grave voice, 'but for the counteracting impression of Divine providence in the works of Nature.'
    Meanwhile Reggie Bassett enjoyed his dinner far more than he expected. He found himself next to Mrs Castillyon, and on sitting down proceeded to examine her with some effrontery. A rapid glance had told her that the boy was handsome, and when she saw what he was about, to give him opportunity at his leisure to observe her various graces, she began to talk volubly with her other neighbour. But presently she turned to Reggie.
    'Well, is it satisfactory?' she asked.
    'What?'
    'Your inspection.'
    She smiled brightly, flashing a quick, provoking look into his fine dark eyes.
    'Quite,' he answered, with a smile, not in the least disconcerted. 'My mother is already thinking that Miss Ley oughtn't to have let me sit by you.'
    Mrs Castillyon was a vivacious creature, small and dainty
like a shepherdess in Dresden china, excitable and restless, who spoke with a loud, shrill voice; and with a quick, nervous gesture, constantly threw herself back in her chair to laugh boisterously at what Reggie said. And finding he could venture very far indeed without fear of offence, the model youth told her little scabrous stories in a low, suave voice, staring meanwhile into her eyes with the shameless audacity of a man conscious of his power. It is the fascination-look of the lady-killer, and its very impudence appears to be half its charm; the rake at heart feels that here modest pretences are useless, and with unhidden joy descends from the pedestal upon which the folly of man has insisted on placing her. Mrs Castillyon's face was thin and small, overpowdered, with rather high cheekbones, her hair, intricately dressed, had an unnatural fairness; but this set Reggie peculiarly at his ease, for he had enough experience of the sex to opine that women who used such artifices were always easier to get on