“Well, I just won’t. I won’t encourage Robin. He ought to get her a proper servant and a man for the garden and the bath chair. I wish you’d give him a hint. Tell him she isn’t strong. I can’t. She’d snap my head off. Would you mind?”
Harriett didn’t mind. She didn’t mind what she said. She wouldn’t be saying it to Robin, but to the contemptible thing that had taken Robin’s place. She still saw Robin as a young man, with young, shining eyes, who came rushing to give himself up at once, to make himself known. She had no affection for this selfish invalid, this weak, peevish bully.
Poor Beatrice. She was sorry for Beatrice. She resented his behavior to Beatrice. She told herself she wouldn’t be Beatrice, she wouldn’t be Robin’s wife for the world. Her pity for Beatrice gave her a secret pleasure and satisfaction.
After dinner she sat out in the garden talking to Robin’s wife, while Cissy Walker played draughts with Robin in his study, giving Beatrice a rest from him. They talked about Robin.
“You knew him when he was young, didn’t you? What was he like?”
She didn’t want to tell her. She wanted to keep the young, shining Robin to herself. She also wanted to show that she had known him, that she had known a Robin that Beatrice would never know. Therefore she told her.
“My poor Robin.” Beatrice gazed wistfully, trying to see this Robin that Priscilla had taken from her, that Harriett had known. Then she turned her back.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve married the man I wanted.” She let herself go. “Cissy says I’ve spoiled him. That isn’t true. It was his first wife who spoiled him. She made a nervous wreck of him.”
“He was devoted to her.”
“Yes. And he’s paying for his devotion now. She wore him out.... Cissy says he’s selfish. If he is, it’s because he’s used up all his unselfishness. He was living on his moral capital.... I feel as if I couldn’t do too much for him after what he did. Cissy doesn’t know how awful his life was with Priscilla. She was the most exacting——”