The girl turned upon her.
“And leave you a free field to lie and trick?”
The woman, too, had risen. “Do you think he really cares for you? At the moment you interest him. At nineteen every woman is a mystery. When the mood is past—and do you know how long a man’s mood lasts, you poor chit? Till he has caught what he is running after, and has tasted it—then he will think not of what he has won, but of what he has lost: of the society from which he has cut himself adrift; of all the old pleasures and pursuits he can no longer enjoy; of the luxuries—necessities to a man of his stamp—that marriage with you has deprived him of. Then your face will be a perpetual reminder to him of what he has paid for it, and he will curse it every time he sees it.”
“You don’t know him,” the girl cried. “You know just a part of him—the part you would know. All the rest of him is a good man, that would rather his self-respect than all the luxuries you mention—you included.”
“It seems to resolve itself into what manner of man he is,” laughed the woman.
The girl looked at her watch. “He will be here shortly; he shall tell us himself.”
“How do you mean?”
“That here, between the two of us, he shall decide—this very night.” She showed her white face to the woman. “Do you think I could live through a second day like to this?”
“The scene would be ridiculous.”
“There will be none here to enjoy the humour of it.”