“You are right, you are right,” cried Pepa bursting into tears.
“Her eyes are like a mirror in which if you can read it rightly you may see something of the future. Think of your child as grown up, as a woman fifteen years hence; how could you bear that some malignant tongue should whisper in her ear shameful tales of her mother’s disgrace? Think of your feelings if some one were to say to her: ‘your mother, before she had been a widow two months, had taken for her lover a married man, the husband of a faithful wife.’”
“Oh, no!” cried Pepa with a flash of indignation, “that they shall never say!”
“But they will say so; why not? If they are ready to say what is not true, why should they not say what is? You must think of the fateful and inevitable influence that a parent’s actions have on the children. There is certain tradition of morality which is a great protection against disaster and dishonour.”
“I implore you not even to suggest that my child can ever be anything but innocence itself!” exclaimed Pepa, drowned in tears.
Then they were both silent; they sat on Ramona’s bed, arm in arm, with their faces very near together, wrapped, as it were, in an atmosphere of tenderness that breathed from them both, gazing in loving contemplation of the child’s happy slumbers. Deep, very deep, down in her heart Pepa was thinking: “child of my body and soul, I can be happy so long as I feel that you are mine, and fancy that I can bestow you on some one I can trust.”
Presently they rose from their place side by side and Pepa seated herself in a dim corner.
“I must be going,” said Leon.
“Already!” said Pepa in dismay and looking up at him imploringly.