"God forbid that I should judge another! But one holds Love so infinitely sacred, that it is unbelievable that, if she had once known it, she could have profaned it so."
"I remember now; we heard about it at the time. Wasn't young Clarence very much cut up?"
"Poor boy! He took it very hard. Don't you remember?—his nurse came to me last year when I had influenza, and of course she talked—they always do——"
"So long as they find anyone to listen."
"Do you know, Julian, that after she had thrown him over, they could do nothing with him? The nurse told me herself that they thought he was going mad. He actually beat his head against the wall of the bedroom in the nursing-home."
"How sensible!"
In the face of this reverend and sympathetic comment, Lady Rossiter not unnaturally ceased the recital of her relative's unfortunate affaire du cœur.
"I suppose if this turns out to be the same woman, you will advise the directors to refuse her application?"
"On what grounds? We did not advertise for a Lady Superintendent of undeviating constancy and infinite capacity for self-sacrifice. If she is a woman of business and has the experience necessary, I really don't see how I can bring it up against her that she once gave the chuck to Clarence Isbister and was responsible for his beating his head against the walls of his nursing-home."
"I am only a woman, Julian," said Lady Rossiter incontrovertibly, but with a certain pathetic smile which she reserved for that particular statement, "but I somehow don't like to think that the Superintendent who is to look after the staff to whom the girls and women and boys whom I have grown to know, will turn to—that she has no higher ideal of Life than poor Clarence's Miss Marchrose."