"Of course, if I could really be a wife to him—"
"Well, can't you?"
She shuddered.
"He terrifies me. When he's there I'm not a woman any more; I'm a captive."
"But since you've married him—"
"I didn't marry him; he married me. I was as much a bargain as if I had been bought. And now mamma sees that—that she might have got a better price."
I thought it enough to say:
"That must make it hard for her."
A sigh bubbled up, like that of a child who has been crying.
"It makes it hard for me." She eyed me with a long, oblique regard. "Don't you think it's awful when an elderly man falls in love with a young girl who herself is in love with some one else?"