"Margot, I feel so wicked about her sometimes."
"Or rather, you are tempted to feel wickedly."
"Is that all? I think I do feel it—now and then. I'm trying not to give in. But when she comes—if I should hate her—if I should see that she—"
Margot was silent, considering what to say. Then she spoke out gently.
"If you should see Edred loving and seeking Dorothea Tracy, you know that one happiness which you wish for is not to be yours. You would know that the life you could choose is not to be your life. Dolly, some of us have to go through that pain, and, hard as it may seem, I think we are not the worse for it in the end; at least, we need not be. One has to learn, somehow, to fight and endure: and that may be as good a way as any other. I can't tell yet if that is to be your discipline; but if it is, you will not hate Dorothea Tracy. She has a right to be loved: and she would not be to blame. Whether he would be to blame is another question. I do not know if he has ever given any reason—"
Margot hesitated, but she had no answer to the half-spoken question.
"One thing I do know," she said; "whatever may be the ending of all this, the last few months have done our Dolly no harm."
"O Margot!"
"I don't think you can judge. Perhaps an outsider can tell better. I had a fear at one time that yours was to be only a kitten life, Dolly—nothing in it but amusement and self-pleasing. Lately, I do see a difference."
"I am afraid it is only, partly, because I haven't cared; because everything has seemed not worth doing."