Brooke sat and stroked his beard. He began to wish that he had not mentioned his project to Mrs. Romaine. But he could not easily tell her to hold her tongue.
"I am not going to presume," said Rosalind, "to say anything unkind—anything harsh of your wife: I know I have not the right, and I know that you would—very properly—resent it. So don't be afraid. But I only want to remind you that Lady Alice is not even where she was when, as an over-sensitive, easily-offended girl, she fled from you. She has had twelve years of life under conditions differing most entirely from yours. She has lived in the fashionable world—a world which of all others you dislike. What sympathy can there be between you? She may be perfect in her own line, but it is not your line: you are different; and you will never be happy together."
"That is a hard thing to say, Rosalind."
"It will be a harder thing for you if you try it. Believe me, Caspar"—her voice trembled as she used his Christian name, which she very seldom did—"believe me that if it would be for your happiness I would welcome the change! But when I remember the discord, the incompatibility, the want of sympathy, which used to grieve me in those old days, I cannot think——"
She stopped short, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Lady Alice could not understand you—could not appreciate you," she said. "And it was hard—hard for your friends to look on and say—nothing!"
Brooke rose abruptly from his chair. "No one ever had a truer friend than I have in you," he said, huskily. "But it seems to me that Alice may have changed with the lapse of years; she may have become easier to satisfy, better able to sympathize——"
"Does she show that spirit in the way she has spoken of you to your daughter? What do you gather from Lesley as to her state of mind?" said Mrs. Romaine, keenly.
He paused. She knew very well that the question was a hard one for him to answer.
"Ah," he said, with a heavy sigh, "you know as well as I do."