But in the morning, as she was thinking that the facts of her own position had still to be explained to her mother,— that it would be necessary that she should declare her purpose and the impossibility of change, now that she had once pledged herself to her lover,—Mrs. Mountjoy came into the room, and stood at her bedside, with that appearance of ghostly displeasure which always belongs to an angry old lady in a night-cap.
"Well, mamma?"
"Florence, there must be an understanding between us."
"I hope so. I thought there always had been. I am sure, mamma, you have known that I have never liked Captain Scarborough so as to become his wife, and I think you have known that I have liked Harry Annesley."
"Likings are all fiddlesticks!"
"No, mamma; or, if you object to the word, I will say love. You have known that I have not loved my cousin, and that I have loved this other man. That is not nonsense; that at any rate is a stern reality, if there be anything real in the world."
"Stern! you may well call it stern."
"I mean unbending, strong, not to be overcome by outside circumstances. If Mr. Annesley had not spoken to me as he did last night,—could never have so spoken to me,—I should have been a miserable girl, but my love for him would have been just as stern. I should have remained and thought of it, and have been unhappy through my whole life. But he has spoken, and I am exultant. That is what I mean by stern. All that is most important, at any rate to me."
"I am here now to tell you that it is impossible."
"Very well, mamma. Then things must go on, and we must bide our time."