so old … endlessly old, built up of layers of disillusion, going down in him generation after generation, like geological strata; and at the same time he was forlorn like a child. An outcast, in a certain sense; but with the desperate bravery of his ratlike existence.
“At least it’s wonderful what you’ve done at your time of life,” said Clifford contemplatively.
“I’m thirty … yes, I’m thirty!” said Michaelis, sharply and suddenly, with a curious laugh; hollow, triumphant, and bitter.
“And are you alone?” asked Connie.
“How do you mean? Do I live alone? I’ve got my servant. He’s a Greek, so he says, and quite incompetent. But I keep him. And I’m going to marry. Oh, yes, I must marry.”
“It sounds like going to have your tonsils cut,” laughed Connie. “Will it be an effort?”
He looked at her admiringly. “Well, Lady Chatterley, somehow it will! I find … excuse me … I find I can’t marry an Englishwoman, not even an Irishwoman. …”
“Try an American,” said Clifford.
“Oh, American!” he laughed a hollow laugh. “No, I’ve asked my man if he will find me a Turk or something … something nearer to the Oriental.”
Connie really wondered at this queer, melancholy specimen of extraordinary success; it was said he had an income of fifty thousand dollars from America alone. Sometimes he was handsome: sometimes as he looked sideways, downwards, and the light fell on him, he had the silent, enduring beauty of a carved ivory Negro mask, with his rather full