The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beyond, by John Galsworthy

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Title: Beyond

Author: John Galsworthy

Release Date: June 14, 2006 [EBook #2453]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

BEYOND

By John Galsworthy

"Che faro senza--!"

To THOMAS HARDY

BEYOND

Part I

I

At the door of St. George's registry office, Charles Clare Winton
strolled forward in the wake of the taxi-cab that was bearing his
daughter away with "the fiddler fellow" she had married. His sense of
decorum forbade his walking with Nurse Betty--the only other witness of
the wedding. A stout woman in a highly emotional condition would have
been an incongruous companion to his slim, upright figure, moving with
just that unexaggerated swing and balance becoming to a lancer of the
old school, even if he has been on the retired list for sixteen years.

Poor Betty! He thought of her with irritated sympathy--she need not have
given way to tears on the door-step. She might well feel lost now Gyp
was gone, but not so lost as himself! His pale-gloved hand--the one real
hand he had, for his right hand had been amputated at the wrist--twisted
vexedly at the small, grizzling moustache lifting itself from the
corners of his firm lips. On this grey February day he wore no overcoat;
faithful to the absolute, almost shamefaced quietness of that wedding,
he had not even donned black coat and silk hat, but wore a blue suit and
a hard black felt. The instinct of a soldier and hunting man to exhibit
no sign whatever of emotion did not desert him this dark day of his
life; but his grey-hazel eyes kept contracting, staring fiercely,
contracting again; and, at moments, as if overpowered by some deep
feeling, they darkened and seemed to draw back in his head. His face was
narrow and weathered and thin-cheeked, with a clean-cut jaw, small
ears, hair darker than the moustache, but touched at the side wings with
grey--the face of a man of action, self-reliant, resourceful. And his
bearing was that of one who has always been a bit of a dandy, and paid
attention to "form," yet been cons