"It shows how careful one ought to be. Confound it!"
Felicity, however, was not troubling herself about Wilton or his expressive looks. The complicated glance, which he feared was a failure, had not even been seen by her. What he had said cheered her for the moment, and au fond, at the back of her brain, with her real sound common sense, she did not actually believe in the cause of her grief. But passion and jealousy, unfortunately, are not governed by sound common sense; they work in circles. Argument and reasoning have but a temporary effect on them; they come back to the point at which they started.
As she looked at Mrs. Tregelly's picture, the feverish chills of suspicion again took possession of her. She told herself repeatedly that she had only been married a year, that Chetwode was in love with her, and had always seemed cold to other women. But he was continually away. He was charming and attractive. Perhaps the other women he met thought she lived for amusement and was utterly neglectful of him. She was afraid she had been imprudent in being seen so much with Wilton, but Chetwode never seemed, really, to mind. He trusted her as she deserved, and as she ought to trust him. Considering the terms that they were on—far more like lovers than husband and wife—it would be real treachery on his part. He was incapable of treachery. She would trust him.
Then the image of Chetwode making love to that pretty woman abruptly forced itself on her mental vision in spite of all reasoning, like a sudden violent physical pain, and she burst into tears.
She controlled them as soon as possible, for she strongly dissented from the old-fashioned idea that a good cry was consoling. On the contrary, she thought that the headache and unbecoming traces of emotion that followed tears had a particularly depressing effect, and left one with nerves. She resolved to dismiss the subject for the moment, anyhow, and to go to Vera's in the afternoon to meet Madame Zero and two or three of Vera's most favoured and intimate friends.