'It is the gallant and the wise one, Cherry. So you ought to admire it more than you seem to do.'
'It cannot be wise if it be not true. That is, if it ever went deep with him.'
'He never meant it to go deep,' said Felix; 'but the very extravagance of his defiance makes me afraid it took stronger hold than he knew, and that the shock may be very bad for him.'
'But she—' and Cherry stopped, afraid to vex him by speaking of Alice's incapacity to raise a character.
He calmly finished. 'She was not all we thought her. True, poor child; but an attachment worthily and steadily maintained, as for all his nonsense this has been, must be well for a man; and a disruption of this kind must be a breaking-up—whether he treat it lightly or no—of foundations such as one who seems to have little besides can ill afford to stand.'
It was the first time that the secret anxiety had been openly named, and Cherry clasped her hands.
'That is my chief anxiety,' resumed Felix. 'Otherwise the end of this matter is of course an advantage.'
'If she could use him so, she was not worth constancy,' said Cherry.
'No!' It was a decided No, though it was followed by 'As they had made her. Poor child! She was full of sweet womanly gifts, and might have been made everything excellent; but Edgar estimated her more truly than I did. There was always a certain spirit of intrigue, and want of substance, or she could never have so treated him.'
'Entirely unfeeling.'