Joyce’s voice sounded harsh and hoarse. After the silence it came out quite suddenly, all the music and softness gone out of it: ‘What have I to do with all this? What has it to say to me?’
‘Joyce! do you think I would come to you without strong reason—betraying Greta?’
‘This has nothing to do with me,’ said Joyce again.
‘It has everything to do with you. So long as he has been at home all has been well. He has seen her every day. He has got to appreciate her, and to see that she is the right wife for him, his own class, his own kind, fit to take her place in the county, and help him to his right position. But he is coming up to town. He will be coming here,’ said Mrs. Bellendean, putting her hand again upon the girl’s arm. ‘Oh, Joyce, Joyce——’
‘I have nothing to do with it,’ said Joyce. ‘What—what do you think I can do?’
‘He—can be nothing to you,’ said the visitor tremulously. ‘You—you’re engaged already. You’ve given your word to a—good respectable man. Norman is only a stranger to you.’
Joyce did not reply. She drew herself away a little, but could not escape the pressure of that eager, persuasive hand.
‘I understand it all,’ said Mrs. Bellendean. ‘He is not clever, but he has the manners of a man that knows the world, and he has been very much struck with you. And you have been—flattered. You have liked to have him come, even though he could never be anything to you.’
She had got Joyce’s arm again in her close clasp, and she felt the strong pulsations, the resistance, the movements of agitation, which, with all her power of self-control, the girl could not restrain.
‘Oh, think, Joyce, before it goes any further! Will you for simple vanity—or like one of the flirts that would have every one at their feet—will you break Greta’s heart, and make a desert of both their lives? All for what?—for a brag,—for a little pleasure to your pride,—for it can be nothing else, seeing you’re engaged to another man!’