Jane tried to believe that her ignorance of a fact so vital to Lingard was not in any way Athena's fault—indeed, that it was nobody's fault except perchance her own.
"You mean you don't know whether he will accept what will be offered him? But, Jane, forgive my interference—he and I have become such friends—you must make him take it. It would be a splendid thing, a stepping-stone to something really big. You'll have to train yourself now to be a little worldly——"
Athena spoke with forced lightness. It would be dreadful if Jane in her folly made Lingard do anything which would be irrevocable. "You can't always live with your head in the clouds, you know!"
Jane felt as if the other had struck her; this flippant, hard-voiced woman was not the Athena she had always known.
"I don't suppose," said Mrs. Maule, at last looking up, and smiling into Jane's face, "that you've even made up your mind where you will spend your honeymoon?"
She was feeling slightly ashamed,—ashamed and yet exhilarated by this absurd, make-believe conversation.
Jane shut the book she held in her hand, and put it down.
"Athena," she said quietly, "I did not mean to tell you yet, but now I think I had better do so. I am going to break my engagement. I see—of course I can't help seeing—that it's been a mistake from the beginning."
"He was not good enough for you, Jane," said Mrs. Maule impulsively. "What he wants is a wife who will help him. You did not understand. I saw that from the first——"
Jane went on quickly: