Page:The Trespasser, Lawrence, 1912.djvu/132

124 childhood. Somehow she did not encourage him to self-discovery. To-day, however, the painful need of lovers for self-revelation took hold on him.

“It is awfully funny,” he said. “I was so gone on Beatrice when I married her. She had only just come back from Egypt. Her father was an army officer, a very handsome man, and, I believe, a bit of a rake. Beatrice is really well connected, you know. But old FitzHerbert ran through all his money, and through everything else. He was too hot for the rest of the family, so they dropped him altogether.

“He came to live at Peckham when I was sixteen. I had just left school, and was to go into father’s business. Mrs. FitzHerbert left cards, and very soon we were acquainted. Beatrice had been a good time in a French convent school. She had only knocked about with the army a little while, but it had brought her out. I remember I thought she was miles above me—which she was. She wasn’t bad-looking, either, and you know men all like her. I bet she’d marry again, in spite of the children.

“At first I fluttered round her. I remember I’d got a little, silky moustache. They all said I looked older than sixteen. At that time I was mad on the violin, and she played rather well. Then FitzHerbert went off abroad somewhere, so Beatrice and her mother half lived at our house. The mother was an invalid.

“I remember I nearly stood on my head one day. The conservatory opened off the smoking-room, so when I came in the room, I heard my two sisters and Beatrice talking about good-looking men.

“&thinsp;‘I consider Bertram will make a handsome man,’ said my younger sister.