The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (4.1895)

Theodora

174

said, with a faint smile, as Theodora let her fur-edged skirt draw
over the snowy pavement, and we heard her clear cultivated tones,
with the fashionable drag in them, ordering the coachman not to
let the horses get cold.

“ But she’s a splendid sort of creature, don’t you think ? ” asked
Digby. “ Happy the man who-eh ? ”

I nodded. “ Yes,” I assented. “But how much that man
should have to offer, old chap, that’s the point; that six thousand
of hers seems an invulnerable protection.”

“ I suppose so,” said Digby with a nervous yawn. “ And to

think I have more than double that and’yet- It’s a pity. Funny

it will be if my looks and your poverty prevent either of us having
her.”

“ My own case is settled,” I said decisively. “ My position
and hers decide it for me.”

“ Fd change places with you this minute if I could,” muttered
Digby moodily, as Steps came down to our door, and we went
forward to meet the women as they entered.

It seemed to arrange itself naturally that Digby should be
occupied in the first few seconds with Mrs. Long, and that I
should be free to receive Theodora.

Of all the lesser emotions, there is hardly any one greater than
that subtle sense of pleasure feit when a woman we love crosses
for the first time our own threshold. We may have met her a
hundred times in her house, or on public ground, but the Sensa-
tion her presence then creates is altogether different from that
instinctive, involuntary, momentary and delightful sense of
ownership that rises when she enters any room essentially our
own.

It is the very illusion of possession.

With this hatefully egoistic satisfaction infused through me, I

drew