Janet made an ideal confidante. The exercise of putting herself sympathetically into other people's shoes was a joy to her. Not only did she see herself as others saw her; she had the rarer gift of seeing others as she saw herself. In doing so, she could leave her own desires and feelings entirely out of the prospect. Thus, the story of Claude and Marjorie, like any other human drama, appealed to her judgment on its merits. Nor did she disturb Claude with the intrusion of any vulgar jealousy because the lover was her own lover and the woman was a rival woman.
The narrative began with the tenderness Claude had conceived for Marjorie some two years before. He told Janet how the proud beauty had first encouraged him and then, with unexampled coolness, had allowed the Earl of Dunbar to displace him in her favor. Later the Earl in his turn had jilted Marjorie. Could he be asked to care for her after such an ill-starred episode?
Unluckily, he was by now far the most desirable match among the young men whose names she consented to put on her list of eligibles. In this preference she had her father's hearty support. Naturally. For Mr. Armstrong was a slave of every wish she framed. Meanwhile, his own father had the most urgent private reasons for promoting the Armstrong project.
"You see my horrible position," he said. "I'm expected to marry a girl I don't love in order to get my father out of a bad box. It's like a story of the eighteenth century; only, in those happy days, it was the daughter, not the son, who had to pull the chestnuts out of the fire."
"But surely, Claude, not all the king's horses nor all the king's men can compel you to marry if you don't want to."
"No, but compulsion isn't the only form of coercion in the world, Janet. Nor even the worst. Can you think what it means to have everybody in your set expecting you to do a certain thing?"
"Expecting you?"
"Yes, it sounds fantastic. But it would sound real enough if once you had a taste of it. They show their expectations by word and deed, by sign and innuendo. They show it constantly, mercilessly, in a hundred small and super-subtle ways. I tell you, Janet, concerted expectation is the strongest form of pressure that can be brought to bear upon a man. It can bring about miracles. It can move mountains. Only a hero or a coward can resist it."
"I suppose it's like the pressure of public opinion or of one's family," she said, her soft clarinet tones pouring balm on his feelings. "I know what family pressure means. I am so sorry for you, Claude, sorry from my heart."
"I love you for saying that, Janet! I love you for your adorable pity. I love you for being so unlike Marjorie. She has her good points; but fellow feeling is not one of them. You see, her social ambition and the ease with which she can gratify her every wish have quite dried up the tender places in her heart. She has no pity left in her nature. And pity is always the essential thing in a woman's soul."