"If you'd liked him, she wouldn't have done it. She'd have been trying too hard to keep you apart."
"You mean, then, that she did it just to hurt me?"
Lifting her slate-coloured eyes, the old lady brushed a wisp of hair back from her forehead. "I don't believe Angelica ever did a thing in her life just to hurt anybody," she answered slowly.
"Then you wouldn't think for an instant——"
"No, I shouldn't think for an instant that she did it just for that. There was some other motive. I don't reckon Angelica would ever do you any harm," she concluded with a charitable intonation, "unless there was something she wanted to gain by it." From her manner she might have been making a point in Angelica's favour.
"But even then? What could she possibly gain?"
"Well, I expect David found out that Roane had been here—that he had been motoring with you—and Angelica was obliged to find some excuse. You see, responsibility is one of the things Angelica can't stand, and whoever happens to be about when it is forced on her, usually bears it. Sometimes, you know, when she throws it off like that, it chances to light by accident just in the proper place. The strangest thing about Angelica, and I can never get used to it, is the way she so often turns out to be right. Look at the way it all happened in Letty's illness. Now, Angelica always stuck out that Letty wouldn't die, and, as it turned out, she didn't. I declare, it looks, somehow, as if not only people, but circumstances as well, played straight into her hands."
"You mean she told him that about me just to spare herself?" Caroline's voice was angry and incredulous.
"That's how it was, I reckon. I don't believe she would have done it for anything else on earth. You see, my dear, she was brought up that way—most American girls are when they are as pretty as Angelica—and the way you're raised seems to become a habit with you. At home the others always sacrificed themselves for her, until she got into the habit of thinking that she was the centre of the universe, and that the world owed her whatever she took a fancy for. Even as a girl, Roane used to say that her feelings were just inclinations, and I expect that's been true of her ever since. She can want things worse than anybody I've ever seen, but apart from wanting, I reckon she's about as cold as a fish at heart. It may sound mean of me to say it, but I've known Cousin Abby to sit up at night and sew her eyes out, so the girl might have a new dress for a party, and all the time Angelica not saying a word to prevent it. There never was a better mother than Cousin Abby, and I've always thought it was being so good that killed her."
"But even now I can't understand," said Caroline thoughtfully. "I felt that she really liked me."