Damaged Goods | Page 9

which had happened in the home of the little family.
Sometimes he found himself thinking that it was a shame to have to suppress these
impulses. There must be something wrong, he thought, with a social system which made
it necessary for him to hide a thing which was so obvious and so sensible. Here he was, a
man twenty-six years of age; he could not have afforded to marry earlier, nor could he, as
he thought, have been expected to lead a continent life. And he had really loved Lizette;
she was really a good girl. Yet, if Henriette had got any idea of it, she would have been
horrified and indignant-- she might even have broken off the engagement.
And then, too, there was Henriette's father, a personage of great dignity and importance.
M. Loches was a deputy of the French Parliament, from a district in the provinces. He
was a man of upright life, and a man who made a great deal of that upright life--keeping
it on a pedestal where everyone might observe it. It was impossible to imagine M. Loches
in an undignified or compromising situation--such as the younger man found himself
facing in the matter of Lizette.

The more he thought about it the more nervous and anxious George became. Then it was
decided it would be necessary for him to break with the girl, and be "good" until the time
of his marriage. Dear little soft-eyed Lizette--he did not dare to face her personally; he
could never bear to say good-by, he felt. Instead, he went to the father, who as a man
could be expected to understand the situation. George was embarrassed and not a little
nervous about it; for although he had never misrepresented his attitude to the family, one
could never feel entirely free from the possibility of blackmail in such cases. However,
Lizette's father behaved decently, and was duly grateful for the moderate sum of money
which George handed him in parting. He promised to break the news gently to Lizette,
and George went away with his mind made up that he would never see her again.
This resolution he kept, and he considered himself very virtuous in doing it. But the truth
was that he had grown used to intimacy with a woman, and was restless without it. And
that, he told himself, was why he yielded to the shameful temptation the night of that fatal
supper party.
He paid for the misadventure liberally in remorse. He felt that he had been a wretch, that
he had disgraced himself forever, that he had proved himself unworthy of the pure girl he
was to marry. So keen was his feeling that it was several days before he could bring
himself to see Henriette again; and when he went, it was with a mind filled with a
brand-new set of resolutions. It was the last time that he would ever fall into error. He
would be a new man from then on. He thanked God that there was no chance of his sin
being known, that he might have an opportunity to prove his new determination.
So intense were his feelings that he could not help betraying a part of them to Henriette.
They sat in the garden one soft summer evening, with Henriette's mother occupied with
her crocheting at a decorous distance. George, in reverent and humble mood, began to
drop vague hints that he was really unworthy of his bride-to-be. He said that he had not
always been as good as he should have been; he said that her purity and sweetness had
awakened in him new ideals; so that he felt his old life had been full of blunders.
Henriette, of course, had but the vaguest of ideas as to what the blunders of a tender and
generous young man like George might be. So she only loved him the more for his
humility, and was flattered to have such a fine effect upon him, to awaken in him such
moods of exaltation. When he told her that all men were bad, and that no man was
worthy of such a beautiful love, she was quite ravished, and wiped away tears from her
eyes.
It would have been a shame to spoil such a heavenly mood by telling the real truth.
Instead, George contented himself with telling of the new resolutions he had formed.
After all, they were the things which really mattered; for Henriette was going to live with
his future, not with his past.
It seemed to George a most wonderful thing, this innocence of a young girl, which
enabled her to move through a world of wickedness with unpolluted mind. It was a
touching thing; and also, as a prudent young man could not help