The Woman Beater by Israel Zangwill — Read

Mrs. Glamorys herself gave "At Homes," every Sunday afternoon, and so, / on the morrow, after a sleepless night mitigated by perpended sonnets, / the love-sick young tutor presented himself by invitation at the / beautiful old house in Hampstead. He was enchanted to find his heart's / mistress set in an eighteenth-century frame of small-paned windows and / of high oak-panelling, and at once began to image her dancing minuets / and playing on virginals. Her husband was absent, but a broad band / of velvet round Winifred's neck was a painful reminder of his / possibilities. Winifred, however, said it was only a touch of sore / throat caught in the garden. Her eyes added that there was nothing in / the pathological dictionary which she would not willingly have caught / for the sake of those divine, if draughty moments; but that, alas! it / was more than a mere bodily ailment she had caught there.

There were a great many visitors in the two delightfully quaint / rooms, among whom he wandered disconsolate and admired, jealous of her / scattered smiles, but presently he found himself seated by her side on / a "cosy corner" near the open folding-doors, with all the other guests / huddled round a violinist in the inner room. How Winifred had managed / it he did not know, but she sat plausibly in the outer room, awaiting / new-comers, and this particular niche was invisible, save to a / determined eye. He took her unresisting hand -- that dear, warm hand, / with its begemmed artistic fingers, and held it in uneasy beatitude. / How wonderful! She -- the beautiful and adored hostess, of whose / sweetness and charm he heard even her own guests murmur to one / another -- it was her actual flesh-and-blood hand that lay in / his -- thrillingly tangible. Oh, adventure beyond all merit, beyond / all hoping!