His assumption of arrogant superiority was unbearable. Diane’s self-control wavered under it and broke. She turned and upbraided him despairingly, alternately pleading and reproaching, battering all her slender forces uselessly against his inflexible determination.
“This is a waste of time, Diane—mine, anyway,” he told her. And left her shaken with grief and anger.
Driven by a sense of utter revolt, she stormed her way to Catherine, who was composedly sorting sheets in the linen room.
“I will not bear it!” she burst out at her furiously. “What have I done that I should be treated as an outcast—a pariah?”
Catherine regarded the tense, quivering little figure with chill dislike.
“You married my brother,” she replied imperturbably.
“And you have separated us! But for you, we should be happy together—he and baby and I! But you have spoilt it all. I suppose”—a hint of the Latin Quarter element in her asserting itself—“I suppose you think no one good enough to marry into your precious family!”
Catherine paused on her way to the cupboard, a pile of fine linen pillowslips in her hands.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It is I who have separated you—spoilt your happiness, if you like. And I am glad of it. I can’t expect anyone like you to understand”—there was the familiar flavour of disparagement in her tones—“but I am thankful that my brother has seen the wickedness of his marriage with you, that he has repented of it, and that he is making the only atonement possible!”
She turned and composedly laid the pile of pillowslips in their appointed place on the shelf. A faint fragrance of dried lavender drifted out from the dark depths of the cupboard. Diane always afterwards associated the smell of lavender with her memories of Catherine Vallincourt, and the sweet, clean scent of it was spoiled for her henceforward.