She bursts into tears.
"Good heavens!" says Margaret distractedly, caressing her and soothing her. "What a world it is! Why, why cannot you and Maurice see how delightful you both are? It is an enigma. No one can solve it. Tita darling, take heart. Why—why, if Marian were so bad as you think her—which I pray God she isn't—still, think how far you can surpass her in youth, in charm, in beauty."
"Beauty!"
The girl looks up at Margaret as if too astonished to say more.
"Certainly in beauty," firmly. "Marian in her best days was never as lovely as you are. Never!"
"Ah! Now I know you love me," says Tita very sadly. "You alone think that." She pauses, and the pause is eloquent. "Maurice doesn't," says she.
"Maurice is a fool" is on Margaret's lips, but she resists the desire to say it to Maurice's wife, and, in the meantime, Tita has recovered herself somewhat, and is now giving full sway once more to her temper.
"After all, I don't care!" exclaims she. "Why should I? Maurice is as little to me as I am to him. What I do care about is being scolded by him all day long, when I have quite as good a right to scold him. Oh, better! He has behaved badly, Margaret, hasn't he? He should never have married me without telling me of—of her."
"I think he should have told you," says Margaret, with decision. "But I think, too, Tita, that he has been perfectly true to you since his marriage."
"True?"