"Don't make fun of me, Anne, when you know she was formerly—"
"But she wasn't, my dear. That's just the point. I'm perfectly sure, I really believe, that she never regarded him in that way at all. She looks on him as a boy, and quite an ordinary boy."
"Ah, but he isn't ordinary!"
"What ever you do, Hyacinth, don't meet him by making a scene. At present he associates you with nothing but gentleness, affection, and pleasure. That is your power over him. It's a power that grows. Don't let him have any painful recollections of you."
"But the other woman, according to you, never gave him pleasure and gentleness and all that—yet you see he turns to her."
"That's a different thing. She didn't love him."
There was a pause.
"And if I find he doesn't mention the meeting, deceives me about it, don't you even advise me to charge him with it then?"
"It is what I should advise, if I wanted you to have a frightful quarrel—perhaps a complete rupture. If you found out he had deceived you, what would you really do?"
Hyacinth stood up.