“Don’t make yourself unhappy about me on that account,” she said. “I only meant that it would naturally make Trevor’s relations look upon it all somewhat differently. And they are fond of you already.”
“But my aunt?” said Geneviève.
Cicely’s face grew graver.“I will do the best I can,” she said. “For every sake I will do that. But I cannot promise you that my mother will ever feel again towards you as she has done. I think it will be best for you soon to go away—to Hivèritz, I suppose—till—till you are married.”
“And when I am married, will you not come to see me? Will you not forgive quite? Will you not love me, Cicely?”
She looked up beseechingly with the tears still shining in her dark eyes, her whole face quivering with agitation.
“You have not cared much for my love hitherto, Geneviève,” said Cicely sadly. “In the future I hope you will need it even less.”
But still she kissed the girl’s sweet face, and for one instant she allowed Geneviève to throw her arms round her. Then she disengaged herself gently and went away.
She did her best as she had promised.
But try as she might to soften matters, the blow fell very heavily on her mother. Even had she thought it right to do so, it would have been impossible to deceive Mrs. Methvyn as to the true state of the case, and Cicely’s generous endeavours to palliate Geneviève’s conduct, by reminding her mother of the girl’s childishness and inexperience, by blaming herself for having kept her in ignorance of Mr. Fawcett’s true position in the household—all seemed at first only to add fuel to the flame of Mrs. Methvyn’s indignation against her cousin’s child.
“No inexperience is an excuse for double dealing and deceit,” she exclaimed. “Even had it not been Trevor, I should have looked upon such behaviour as disgraceful in the extreme. No, Cicely, you can say nothing to soften it. French or English, however she had been brought up, she must have known she was doing wrong. I cannot believe in her childishness and ignorance. She cannot be so very childish if she has succeeded in achieving her purpose in this way. And as for Trevor, she must have utterly bewitched him. I can pity him if he marries her, for of course it is utterly impossible he can care for her as he does for you.”