“I think he has had a very bad influence upon you, Lady Sarah.”
The baronet’s wife took this remark also in fairly good part. It was easier, at any rate, to discuss this matter with another woman than with Sir Robert. She took a seat near the dressing-table, and signed to Rhoda to sit too. Then she leaned on her hand, and looked her steadily in the face.
“You think, I suppose,” said she coolly, “that I am fonder of Jack than I ought to be.”
This was such unexpected frankness that Rhoda stammered, not quite prepared with a reply. Lady Sarah nodded sagely.
“Of course in a way you are right. I confess that I’ve always liked Jack better than any other man, much better, for instance, than I’ve ever liked Sir Robert.”
“Oh, hush! pray don’t say such things!”
Lady Sarah’s pretty face grew mutinous.
“Why shouldn’t I say them? You have always known the truth so far, and it would be only cant to pretend you hadn’t. Come, Miss Pembury, be honest. You first knew me ten years ago. Didn’t you know, even then, that I liked Jack best? If you didn’t, you ought to have known. For I’m sure everybody else did.”
“Well, even if I did, of course I took it for granted, when I found you married to a man so good and so generous, and so devoted to you, that you were fond of him.”
“You should never take anything for granted, with a woman like me. I don’t think even Sir Robert took so much for granted as you seem to have done. A man thinks only of getting the woman he likes best to marry him, you know; he never asks himself whether he can make her love him. That’s what he takes for granted. Sometimes, no doubt, he’s right; sometimes, he’s wrong. Sir Robert was wrong.”