Cassandra shook her head with a dreary indifference.
“But I don’t care, you see; I don’t care. Nothing matters to me at this moment but just our two selves! It’s so easy for you to talk, Grizel. You are more than happy; you are content! I’ve never been content in all my life. I’ve been starved of all that really matters in a woman’s life, and now, when I am offered a full meal, I must give it up and be hungrier than before! I am going to do what is right, for there is something in me which is stronger than passion, an inheritance, I suppose, from generations of stiff old Protestant ancestors,—but the doing of it will break my heart. According to the old ideas it should make me happy. Oh, Grizel, Grizel, it isn’t true! How can I be happy if I give up Dane?”
Grizel shook her head.
“You can’t. Not for a long, long time. You’ll be miserable... There’s only one thing, darling!”
“Yes?”
“It would be worse if you didn’t! You may be unhappy as Bernard’s wife, but you would be a hundred times more miserable as—Dane’s mistress!”
Cassandra flushed hotly.
“He would marry me!”
“I’m sure of it. If he could. But—”
“Well, well! why discuss it; it is not going to happen. I’m going to live on at the Court, and set an example to the school-children, and keep Bernard’s accounts... and grow old, and die, and be buried. That is all I have to look forward to, and you have this to remember, Grizel Beverley, that it was you interrupted the one hour of perfect happiness that I have ever known!”