"What do you mean, John? What has she ever done?"
"I cannot tell you, Elinor; nothing perhaps. She does not take my fancy: that's all."
"That's not all; you could never be so unjust and so absurd. How dreadful you good people are! Pretending to mean kindness," she cried, "you put the mark of your dislike upon people, and then you won't say why. What have they done?"
It was this "they" that put John upon his guard. Hitherto she had only been asking about the sister, who did not matter so very much. If a man was to be judged by his sister! but "they" gave him a new light.
"Can't you understand, Elinor," he said, "that without doing anything that can be built upon, a woman may set herself in a position of enmity to the world, her hand against every one, and every one's hand against her?"
"I know that well enough—generally because she does not comply with every conventional rule, but does and thinks what commends itself to her; I do that myself—so far as I can with mamma behind me."
"You! the question has nothing to do with you."
"Why not with me as much as with another of my family?" said Elinor, throwing back her head.
He turned round upon her with something like a snort of indignation: she to be compared—but Elinor met his eyes with scornful composure and defiance, and John was obliged to calm himself. "There's no analogy," he said; "Lady Mariamne is an old campaigner. She's up to everything. Besides, a sister-in-law—if it comes to that—is not a very near relation. No one will judge you by her." He would not be led into any discussion of the other, whose name, alas! Elinor intended to bear.
"If it comes to that. Perhaps you think," said Elinor, with a smile of fine scorn, "that you will prevent it ever coming to that?"