Explore "The Spark" by Edith Wharton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
This is not a story-teller's story; it is not even the kind of episode capable of being shaped into one. Had it been, I should have reached my climax, or at any rate its first stage, in the incident at the Polo Club, and what I have left to tell would be the effect of that incident on the lives of the three persons concerned.
It is not a story, or anything in the semblance of a story, but merely an attempt to depict for you--and in so doing, perhaps make clearer to myself--the aspect and character of a man whom I loved, perplexedly but faithfully, for many years. I make no apology, therefore, for the fact that Bolton Byrne, whose evil shadow ought to fall across all my remaining pages, never again appears in them; and that the last I saw of him (for my purpose) was when, after our exaggeratedly cheerful and even noisy dinner that evening at Jack Alstrop's, I observed him shaking hands with Hayley Delane, and declaring, with pinched lips and a tone of falsetto cordiality: "Bear malice? Well, rather not--why, what rot! All's fair in-- in polo, ain't it? I should say so! Yes--off first thing tomorrow. S'pose of course you're staying on with Jack over Sunday? I wish I hadn't promised the Gildermeres." And therewith he vanishes, having served his purpose as a passing lantern-flash across the twilight of Hayley Delane's character.