Eve smiled.
“No; but I knew long ago. I do not think she was good, Fitz, but that was good in her--quite good. People say that it sometimes saves men. It often saves women. I think it is better for a girl to have no mother at all than to have a foolish mother, much better, I am sure of it.”
“Women like Mrs. Ingham-Baker,” said Fitz gruffly, “do more harm in the world than women who are merely bad. She made Agatha what she was, and Agatha made Luke throw away the Croonah.”
“But the Court decided that it was an unusual current,” said Eve, who had followed every word of the official inquiry.
Fitz shrugged his shoulders.
“He threw the ship away,” he said. “Sailors like Luke do not get wrecked on the Burlings.”
Eve did not pursue the subject, for this was the shadow on her happiness. It has been ruled that we are not to be quite happy here, and those are happiest who have a shadow that comes from outside--from elsewhere than from themselves or their own love.
Eve, womanlike, had thought of these things, analysing them as women do, and she recognised the shadow frankly. She was too intelligent, too far-sighted to expect perfect bliss, but she knew that she had as near an approach to it as is offered for human delectation, neutralised as it was by that vague regret which is only the reflection of the active sorrows of others.
Fitz had handed the Count’s letter to his wife. She read it slowly and allowed it to drop. As it fluttered to her lap she caught sight of some writing on the back.
“Did you see the postscript?” she asked.