"Well, I like you in that, but wear whatever you please as long as it is becoming. You must look ethereal, and you must look happy. Men hate a sad face because it seems to reproach them, and, even if they murder you, they resent your reproaching them."
There was a deliberate purpose in her levity, for an intuition to which she trusted was warning her that there are times when the only way to treat refractory circumstances is to bully them into submission. "If you once let life get the better of you, you are lost," she said to herself.
"You can't understand," Alice was murmuring while she wiped her eyes. "You have always had what you wanted."
Corinna laughed. "I am glad you see it that way," she rejoined, "but you would be nearer the truth if you had said I'd always wanted what I had."
"It seems to me that you've had everything."
"Very likely. The lot of another person is one of the mountains to which distance lends enchantment."
"You mean that you haven't been happy?"
"Oh, yes, I've been happy. If I hadn't been, with all I've had, I should be ashamed to admit it."
But Alice was in a mood of mournful condolence. She had pitied herself so overwhelmingly that some of the sentiment had splashed over on the lives of others. It was her habit to sit still under affliction, and when one sits still, one has a long time in which to remember and regret.
"Your marriage must have been a disappointment to you," she said, "but you were so brave, poor dear, that nobody suspected it until you were separated."