"I am extremely obliged to you! You really couldn't have been more frank. I am sorry that nothing I do pleases you. You must be quite sorry by now you married me—but really I didn't force you! Why should I give up my friends? You know very well you won't give up Lady Maxwell."
She looked at him keenly, her little foot beating the ground.
George started.
"But what is there to give up?" he cried. "Come and see her yourself—come with me, and make friends with her. You would be quite welcome."
But as he spoke he knew that he was talking absurdly, and that Letty had reason for her laugh.
"Thank you! Lady Maxwell made it quite plain to me at Castle Luton that she didn't want my acquaintance. I certainly sha'n't force myself upon her any more. But if you'll give up going to see her—well, perhaps I'll see what can be done to meet your wishes; though, of course, I think all you say about Harding and Lord Cathedine is just unreasonable prejudice!"
George was silent. His mind was torn between the pricks of a conscience that told him Letty had in truth, as far as he was concerned, a far more real grievance than she imagined, and a passionate intellectual contempt for the person who could even distantly imagine that Marcella Maxwell belonged to the same category as other women, and was to be won by the same arts as they. At last he broke out impatiently:
"I cannot possibly show discourtesy to one who has been nothing but kindness to me, as she is to scores of others—to old friends like Edward Watton, or new ones like—"
"She wants your vote, of course!" threw in Letty, with an excited laugh. "Either she is a flirt—or she wants your vote. Why should she take so much notice of you? She isn't your side—she wants to get hold of you—and it makes you ridiculous. People just laugh at you and her!" She turned upon him passionately. A little more, and the wish to say the wounding, venomous thing would have grown like a madness upon her. But George kept his self-possession.
"Well, they may laugh," he said, with a strong effort to speak good-humouredly. "But politics aren't managed like that, as you and they will find out. Votes are not so simple as they sound."
He got up and walked away from her as he spoke. As usual, his mood was beginning to cool. He saw no way out. They must both accept the status quo. No radical change was possible. It is character that makes circumstance, and character is inexorable.