"I'm glad you aren't jealous," said Miss Chris. "I used to think you were—as a child."
"Oh, I was—as a child," replied Eugenia. Her kindly face clouded. It was borne in upon her with a twinge of conscience that the absence of jealousy which had become the safeguard of Dudley's peace proved her own lack of passion. What a hell some women—good women—might have made of Dudley's life—that genial life that flowed as smoothly as a song. In the flights and pauses of his temperament what discord might have shocked the decent measure of their marriage? Persistent passion would have bored him; exacting love would have soured the charm of his radiant egotism. It was because she was not in love with him, that her love had wisely meted out to him only so much or so little of herself as he desired—and with a sudden arraignment of Fate she admitted that because she had failed in the first requirement of the marriage sacrament, she had made that sacrament other than a mockery. Out of her own unfulfilment Dudley's happiness was fulfilled.
"Yes, Dudley suits me," she said absently, "and, what's the main thing, I suit Dudley."
"Well, well, I'm glad of it," returned Miss Chris, but in a moment Eugenia was kneeling beside her, her hand upon the open Bible.
"Dear Aunt Chris, you haven't told me all," she said.
"All?" Miss Chris wavered. "You mean about Bernard?"
"I mean about the governor." She closed the. Bible and pushed it from her. "Do you think he is quite, quite happy?"
Miss Chris laughed in protest.
"Do I believe him to be pining of hopeless love? No, I don't," she retorted.
"Oh, not that!" exclaimed Eugenia impatiently. She appeared vaguely to resent Miss Chris's assurance. She was feminine enough to experience an irrational jealousy at the idea of a vacancy which she had done her best to create. It destroyed an example of the permanence of love.