“I’ll stay away on Wednesday,” Grizel said meekly, and they laughed together in feeble, halfhearted fashion. “But I’ll come up later, and say everything all over again,” she continued presently, “and I’ll go on saying it, as often as you need it, and do my penance that way... Take long views, Cassandra, darling, take long views! One isn’t always young and ardent; it’s only for a little spell, after all, and all the long, long time stretches ahead, when one has to be middle-aged, and elderly, and old... Think how thankful you’ll be at forty, when the boy comes of age. Think how thankful you’ll be at fifty, when the grandchildren begin to appear. Think what a far-off tale it will seem at sixty, when you don’t want romance any more, but just to be quiet, and comfortable, and respected. And when you are seventy—”
Cassandra stopped her with a hasty hand.
“I’m not a bit interested in what I shall feel at seventy. I want to be happy now. I could say all these things to you, Grizel, if you were in my place, but they wouldn’t help. I want to be loved!”
Grizel sighed. She knew better than to advance the reality of her own affection at that moment, for the truest friendship on earth can never feel the gap left by love. There was only one person on earth who in any fashion could console Cassandra for Peignton’s loss, and he was the one for whom she was making her sacrifice. The glimpse she had had of Bernard junior during an exeat spent at home, was not inspiring, but Grizel’s indomitable optimism surmounted all difficulties.
“The boy will love you, darling,” she said softly. “That will come! He is getting to the age when he will appreciate your beauty, and that means so much. He will begin by being proud of you, and the rest will follow. And he will mean more to you after this. When you have sacrificed so much for a person, he becomes more precious... You’ll grow together. I know it, I feel it! In a few years’ time he will be your devoted companion. I’m going to have a son like that myself some day, but I shan’t have the right to him that you have. I shan’t have paid such a big price!”
The tears welled slowly into Cassandra’s eyes. She turned her head aside, and sat gazing into the mist of green which formed the outer world. A son’s love would be sweet, but it was at present merely a possibility, while Dane’s love was real, and near, and strong. And other women had both! Blessed women on whom husbands and sons waited with rival devotion. The bitter problem of inequality, old as the earth itself, tore at Cassandra’s heart, demanding why she should starve, while others sat at a feast; why the narrow path should sometimes be strewn with flowers, and again with jagged stones. She fought it out in her mind while Grizel sat waiting, but to-day she had no power to find comfort for herself. Body and mind alike were spent and weary. She was thankful to feel the presence of a friend...
“Are you one of the people, Grizel, who preach that all lots in life are equally good?”
“I should hope not. I have some common sense.”
“Oh, it’s not a question of common sense; it’s a question of faith. Mrs Evans would say they were. She says every heart knows its own bitterness, that people may appear very fortunate, but one can never tell that there is not a skeleton locked away. And if other people are terribly poor, or chronic invalids, or anything desperate like that, she says that they have a temperament that makes up, or that we can only see the present, and not life as a whole...”
“I’ve known,—by sight and hearsay,—many whole lives, and they’ve been a martyrdom, nearly all the way through. I’ve known others, in the same way, which were nearly all sunshine. Rainstorms, of course, and an occasional squall, but never, never the whirlwind or the lightning. Life is not evened out; it’s folly to pretend it. It’s fifty times harder for some than for others.”