"That is the worst of it," he replied.
"Oh, no—the best of it," she said, and then she looked away from him across the room, and added, in a tone altogether different, "One does not want too much time on one's hands."
Once or twice before he had seen this slight, unconscious change fall upon her, and, without comprehending, had been sharply moved by it, but she always recovered herself quickly, and she did so now.
"I tried it once," she said, "and it did not agree with me, and since then I have occupied myself. As Richard says, 'one must have an object,' and mine is to occupy myself."
"You accomplish your end, at least," he remarked.
"Yes," she answered. "I congratulate myself upon that. Upon the whole I do not know any one who is more fortunate than I am. No other life would suit me half so well as the one I lead. I am fond of gayety, and change, and freedom, and I have all three. Richard is amiable, the children are like him, and there is nothing to interfere with my having my own way, and amusing myself as I please. I should be thoroughly unhappy if I could not have my own way; to have it invariably is one of my laudable ambitions, and as I always get it you see I have reason for being charmed with my lot."
"You are very fortunate," he said.
"I am more than fortunate," she answered. Then she broke into a little laugh. "It is rather odd," she said, "that just before you came in I was lying thinking of the time you were in Washington before, and there came back to me something I said to you the night you gave me the heliotrope."
"Was it," said Tredennis, "what you said to me about being happy?"
"What!" she said. "You remember it? I scarcely thought that you would remember it."