“Some man would get hold of it, Aunt Marion.”
“Which is what I’m debating. I’m not so very sure––”
“That I shall marry in the end?”
“Well, you’re not married yet ... and if you were to change your mind ... the world has such a need of consecrated women with men so unscrupulous and irresponsible ... we must break their power some day ... and now that we’ve got the opportunity ... all I want you to understand is that if you shouldn’t marry there’d be a great career in store for you....”
Chapter XIX
By the end of twenty-four hours the possibility of this great career quickened Barbara’s zeal for taking a hand in Letty’s education. Not only did that impulse of furious jealousy, by which she meant at first to leave it wholly to Rash, begin to seem dangerous, but there was a world to consider and throw off the scent. Now that Augusta Chancellor knew that the girl was beneath Rash’s roof all their acquaintances would sooner or later be in possession of the fact. It was Barbara’s part, therefore, to play the game in such a way that a bit of quixotism would be the most foolish thing of which Rash would be suspected.
That she would be playing a game she knew in advance. She must hide her suspicions; she must control her sufferings. She must pretend to have confidence in Rash, when at heart she cried against him as an infant and a fool. Never was woman in such a ridiculous situation as that into which she had been thrust; never was heart so wild to ease itself by invective and denunciation; and never was the padlock fixed so firmly on the lips. Hour by hour the man she loved was being weaned and won away from her; and she must stand by with grimacing smiles, instead of throwing up her arms in dramatic gestures and calling on her gods to smite and smash and annihilate.
Since, however, she had a game to play, a game she would play, though she did it quivering with protest and repulsion.