She heard her mother’s voice again, soft and sweet.
“You are my own darling little girl, all I have. With God’s help and blessing we will walk together and work together. I—I——” Her voice faltered, and then became steady. “I am not selfish enough to wish to keep you to myself. I know, none better, that you need a strong man’s guidance and protection. I know, too, that you will choose your mate wisely, with an intelligent sense of all, all, I repeat, that marriage includes. Passion is an ephemeral emotion which gentlewomen distrust instinctively. At the best it must die down with the years. I was very happy in my marriage, because I found in your dear father the qualities that endure—fidelity, high honour, stainless integrity, and an unswerving purpose in the conduct of life. He did his duty. I was fortunate, also, in finding a man older and wiser than myself, in whose strength I could trust.”
She rose to her feet, standing very erect, an imposing figure in her black draperies. She might have stood thus in a Greek tragedy, impersonating one of the Parcæ. Cicely was immensely impressed. She rose also. Her mother kissed her.
“These rooms,” she murmured, “are rather overpowering. I will go to my own and be quiet for a little. But you—you are glad to be here, aren’t you? Your memories of our dearest boy are all fragrant and happy. Perhaps I allowed my ambitions for him too great an ascendancy in my heart——”
She paused. Cicely divined that her mother’s careful choice of words indicated previous thought, self-analysis. Yes; bitter disappointment underlay her tranquil phrases. These rooms held the emptiness of an ancient house. She understood why her mother had changed them almost out of recognition.
“I am glad to be here,” she answered, in a strangled voice. “I—I hope, Mother, that I—I—I——”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Lady Selina kissed her again.
“You will take his place,” she whispered. “That is the one consolation of my life.”
Cicely was left alone with her disquieting reflections.