Presently the older woman began speaking again:
"Do you know, Nell, I was always a little surprised that Lord Byron, of all people, should have put it that way:
"I know the right, and I approve it too;
Condemn the wrong—and yet the wrong pursue.
"The right '—why, it is like a woman to say that. As if there were but one 'right,' and it were dressed in purple and fine linen, and seated on a throne in sight of the assembled multitude! 'The right.' indeed! Yes, it sounds like a woman—and a very young woman at that, Nellie."
The girl looked with large, troubled, passionate eyes at her friend, and then broke out into hot, indignant words—words that would have offended many a woman; but Florence Campbell only laughed, a light, queer little peal; tipped her chair a trifle farther back, put her daintily slippered feet on the satin cushion of the low window-seat, and looked at her friend, through the gathering darkness, from under half-closed eyelids.
Presently—this woman was always deliberate in her conversation; long silences were a part of her power in interesting and keeping the full attention of her listeners—presently she said:
"Of course you think so. Why shouldn't you? So did I—once. And do you know, Nellie, that sort of sentiment dies hard—very hard—in a woman. At your age—" Florence Campbell always spoke as if she were very old, although to look at her one would say that she was not twenty-eight.
These delicately formed Dresden-china women often carry their age with such an easy grace—it sits upon them so lightly—in spite of ill-health, mental storms, and moral defeats, that while their more robust sisters grow haggard and worn, and hard of feature and tone, under weights less terrible and with feelings less intense, they keep their grace and gentleness of tone in the teeth of every blast.
"At your age, dear, I would have scorned a woman who talked as I do now; and more than that, I would have suspected her, as you do not suspect me, of being a very dangerous and not unlikely a very bad person indeed—simply from choice. While you—you generous little soul—think that I am better than I talk."
She laughed again, and shifted her position as if she were not wholly comfortable under the troubled gaze of the great eyes she knew were fastened upon her.