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Page 23
"My name,"
She said, "My name which I bear frankly now,
And know no risk, not even the risk it brings,
Is worse than an hypocrisy. When you
Knew Lota Deveril you knew a liar;
I left that name behind me nine years back,
With my free foolish girlhood. Nine years back!
It seems as if some other lived, not I,
In those far days, and was a frightened bride,
But not unwilling, hardly quite unwilling.
"We were in Venice then - my father liked
The life there, and we always lived abroad
Because he said he would be poor in peace
And have a poor man's pleasure when he liked,
And that, in England, all his neighbourhood
Would play the sentinel upon his ways,
And keep accounts for him with shaken heads
At this too spendthrift, that too miserly.
And I too loved the freedom; no strait walls
Of meaningless dull custom prisoning us
Into the limits of our neighbours' lives;
No fashion stricter on us than we chose,
No laws forced on us, to look grave or laugh,
To be alone and quiet, or to talk
And simper friendliness, to walk or rest
At due fixed times. It was an easy life.
But we had friends, and made no sullen choice
Of loneliness; I laughed and danced and sang,
Like other girls, on many a merry night,
In many a great quaint palace where the ghosts
Of its old-world lords flit by in quiet hours
And know their way, there is so little changed.
And so he met me, and he would not rest
Until he knew my father. And he tasked
His whole great skill of gracious courtesies
And flowing talk made rich with noble thoughts
And subtle reverent flatteries, to win
His easily won trust. My father was,
As the bravest men are oftenest, a man
Most like a woman in his heart ... and that
Means that he could be duped by any mask
Of honour or of kindness. So he learned
To love Emilio blindly.
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