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

the midst of his violent speech he was stopped by the amusement of Lady Vizard's cold eyes.
    'But you talk as if I'd been divorced. How absurd you are! In that case it might have been better to go away for a bit, yet even then I should have faced it. But d'you think I'm going to run away now? Pas si bête, mon petit!'
    'D'you mean to say you're going to stay here when everyone knows what you are – when they'll point at you in the street, and whisper to one another foul stories? And however foul they are, they'll be true.'
    Lady Vizard shrugged her shoulders.
    'Oh, que tu m'assomes!' she said scornfully, justly proud of her French accent. 'You know me very little if you think I'm
going to hide myself in some pokey Continental town, or add another tarnished reputation to the declassée society of Florence. I mean to stay here. I shall go everywhere, I shall be seen at every theatre, at the opera, at the races, everywhere. I've got some good friends who'll stick to me, and you'll see in a couple of years I shall pull through. After all, I've done little more than plenty of others, and if the bourgeois knows a good deal about me that he didn't know before— je m'en bats l'oeil. I've got rid of my pig of a husband, and, for that, the whole thing was almost worth it. After all, he knew what was going on; he only rounded on me because he was afraid I spent too much.'
    'Aren't you ashamed?' asked Basil, in a low voice. 'Aren't you even sorry?'
    'Only fools repent, my dear. I've never done anything in my life that I wouldn't do over again – except marry the two men I did.'
    'And you're just going to remain here as if nothing had happened?'
    'Don't be foolish, Basil,' answered Lady Vizard ill-temperedly. 'Of course, I'm not going to stay in this particular house. Ernest Torrens has rather a nice little shanty vacant in Curzon Street, and he's offered to lend it me.'
    'But you wouldn't take it from him, mother. That would be too infamous. For God's sake, don't have anything more to do with these men.'
    'Really, I can't throw over an old friend just because my husband makes him a co-respondent.'
    Basil went up to her, and placed his hands on her shoulders.
    'Mother, you can't mean all you say. I dare say I'm stupid and awkward – I can't say what I have in my mind. Heaven knows, I don't want to preach to you, but isn't there something in honour and duty and cleanliness and chastity, and all the rest of it? Don't be so hard on yourself. What does it matter what people say? Leave all this and let us go away.'
    'T'es ridicule, mon cher,' said Lady Vizard, her brow darkening. 'If you have nothing more amusing to suggest than that, we might go to the drawing-room.... Are you coming?'
    She walked towards the door, but Basil intercepted her.
    'You shan't go yet. After all, I'm your son, and you've got no right to disgrace yourself.'
    'And what will you do, pray?'
    Lady Vizard smiled now in a manner that suggested no great placidity of temper.
    'I don't know, but I shall find something. If you haven't the honour to protect yourself, I must protect you.'
    'You impudent boy, how dare you speak to me like that!' cried Lady Vizard, turning on him with flashing eyes. 'And what d'you mean by coming here and preaching at me? You miserable prig! I suppose it runs in your family, for your father was a prig before you.'
    Basil looked at her, anger taking the place of every other feeling; pity now had vanished, and he sought not to hide his indignation.
    'Oh, what a fool I was to believe in you all these years! I would have staked my life that you were chaste and pure. And yet when I read those papers, although the jury doubted, I knew that it was true.'
    'Of course it was true!' she cried defiantly. 'Every word of it, but they couldn't prove it.'
    'And now I'm ashamed to think I'm your son.'
    'You needn't have anything to do with me, my good boy. You've got money of your own. D'you think I want a lubberly, ill-bred oaf hanging about my skirts?'
    'I