“We have learnt the mortifying lesson that no influences we can bring to bear have any power against hereditary depravity.”
At that something in him rose and cavilled.
“Depravity! That is scarcely the right word! There is no depravity in an engagement to marry between two free people, however brought about.”
Engagements to marry had always been subjects for wincing to Camilla ever since her own, and the phrase “however brought about,” though uttered without the slightest arrière-pensée, was perhaps not happily chosen. She fell silent, and later in the evening, after a prolonged pause, evidently given to painful reflection, said—
“I thought I had never seen a path more plainly indicated to me as the right one, never taken a step more unmistakably under guidance; but I now see that I was misled by that exaggerated value for physical attractions which has led me into all the gravest errors of my life.”
Edward was no coxcomb; yet it was impossible to mistake what the gravest of the grave errors of her life had, in his wife’s opinion, been.
Next morning Mrs. Tancred came down to breakfast in her bonnet.
“You are coming to London with me?” asked her husband, looking up from his coffee.
“No.”
The negative was naked, and did not seem to invite further questioning; but Mrs. Tancred presently volunteered the unasked information.