"You call Grantley selfish," Christine went on. "You're just as bad yourself—yes, worse! He is trying to be different, I believe. Oh, I admit the poor man doesn't do it very well: he gets very little encouragement! But are you trying? No! You're quite content with yourself. You've done no wrong—— Well, perhaps it was a little questionable to be ready to leave Frank to die! But even that would be all right if only I could understand it!"
"You'd better go on now," said Sibylla quietly.
"Yes, I will go on; I am going on. You were ready to leave the child to die sooner than go on living as you'd been living. Isn't that how you put it? You were willing to give his life to prevent that? Well, are you willing to give any of your own life, any of your way of thinking, any of what you call your nature, or your temperament, or what not? Not a bit of it! You can love Frank when there's no danger of Grantley's thinking it may mean that you could forgive him! As soon as there's any danger of that, you draw back. You use the unhappy child as a shield between Grantley and yourself, as a weapon against Grantley. Yes you do, Sibylla. Whenever you're inclined to relent towards Grantley, you go and sit by that child's cot and use your love for him to fan your hatred against Grantley. Isn't that true?"
Sibylla sat silent, with attentive frightened eyes. This was a new picture—was it a true one? One feature of it at least struck home with a terribly true-seeming likeness of her own mind. She used her love for her child to fan her hatred against Grantley!
"You complain," Christine went on in calm relentlessness, "of what Grantley is to the child. That's a sham most of the time. You're thinking of what he is to you. And even where it's true, don't you do all you can to make him feel as he does? How is he to love what you make the stalking-horse of your grievances?" She turned on Sibylla scornfully, almost fiercely now. "Your husband, your son, the whole world, aren't made for your emotions to go sprawling over, Sibylla! You must have caught that idea from young Blake, I think."
She walked off to the window and stood there, looking out. No sound came from Sibylla. Presently Christine looked round rather nervously. She had gone a little too far perhaps. That phrase about emotions "sprawling" was—well, decidedly uncompromising. She met Sibylla's eyes. They wore a hunted look—as though some peril walled her in and she found no way of escape. Her voice trembled as she faltered:
"Is that what you really think of me, Christine?"
"A bruised reed thou shalt not break." Christine had the wisdom to remember that. Remorse must fall short of despair, self-knowledge of self-hatred, or there remains no possibility of a rebound to hope and effort. Christine came across to her friend with hands outstretched.
"No, no, dear," she said, "not you—not yourself! But this mood of yours, the way you're going on. And, true or false, isn't it what you must make Grantley think?"
Sibylla moved her hands in a restless gesture, protesting against the picture of herself—even thus softened—denying its truth, fascinated by it.