"A considerable difference!"
"Cyril says people drift into things and can't help themselves."
"Cyril has had immense experience, no doubt."
"Then it isn't true?"
"Some people are weak enough to let themselves drift; but nobody need. Mind that, Jean."
"If Evelyn drifted into marrying the General—"
"Yes?" as Jean came to a stop.
"She must be very sorry now. That is what I have been thinking. Because it wouldn't be enough, I should think, to have a husband who was only just so very good and nothing else. And he doesn't care for the same things or the same people that she does. He never reads the books she likes most . . . Evelyn often looks as if she were sorry. She looks as if—I don't know exactly how to put it—only there's a look in her face, as if she did so want something else, something more than she has. He is very kind, of course; but still—I shouldn't think she was so very happy."
Jem rested his forehead on his hand. Jean's words brought a curious sharp sense of pain; literal pain darting through his temples, symbol and fruit of an acuter pain below. The pain was for Evelyn, not for himself. He was not thinking of himself, or of his own loss. Personally he had nothing to do with Evelyn Villiers, whatever he had felt for Evelyn Devereux. But, if Jean's conjecture were true—if that fair creature's life had been marred by hasty action, before she was old enough to judge for herself, Jem hardly knew how to face the thought. It seemed to him so very possible, and so very terrible.
If Evelyn were happy, he could rest in the consciousness of her happiness, going his own way peacefully enough; but if she were not—How could he rest, knowing her to be miserable, while he was powerless to help? "Miserable" is a strong word; but if love and sympathy were lacking between the husband and wife, what could it mean less than misery for either of them?