"It's real good of you to speak like that, my dear. It takes a woman to be true and forgivin' like that. I wonder what the young man will be doin', now, all this time?"
"He is trying hard to make that weary fortune, to be sure. He is ambitious."
"And he don't allow himself even the encouragement of writin' to tell you how he's gettin' on. Do you think there could be some one up there encouragin' him?"
"Mrs Denwiddie!"
"There's no tellin', my dear, what the men are up to. They ain't faithful and endurin' like us."
"I have waited. I can wait."
"It does you credit, my dear. But a girl's youth won't wait. How about settlin' yourself in life?"
Maida tightened her lips. She knew all that as well as Mrs Denwiddie; but what right had the woman to inspect her life in this fashion? to pull open the fold in which she chose to hide her inner self, and pry and probe in wanton curiosity?--the merciless and contemptuous curiosity with which married women will card out and examine the tangled threads of a spinster's being. She knew well enough the hopelessness of what, for want of another name, she thought of as her "attachment." Yet why could it not be taken at such small worth as she put upon it? She had not boasted of it. She knew its little value too well. But it was all she had, and why might she not wear it, having nothing else? That evening she was sitting a wallflower while the rest were merry--with no one to lead her out or make her a sharer in the gaiety. What wonder if she should wish to refer to a deferred engagement, and furbish up the poor little relic of a might-have-been, the one bit of romance she ever had, if only to seem less forlorn in her own eyes? And this old thing by her side, as lonely and shut out from the revelry as herself, and who, but for her, would have sat absolutely solitary--that she should take upon her to be inquisitive and unpleasant! It was intolerable. She gathered her spare skirts more tightly round her, and edged some inches away upon the haircloth sofa she divided with her "friend." She would have risen altogether, but where was she to go? To what other companion could she join herself? She was not intimate with any of the other guests, married or single, old or young. She belonged, poor soul, to the order of bats--both bird and quadruped, yet accepted by neither. In the marrying aspect, she was regarded as altogether out of the running, while old and young agreed each in classing her with the other variety--too old to be a girl, not old enough to be a tabby--and nobody minded her when other company could be got. She felt it all, though she bravely ignored and struggled with her fate, living through many a tragic pang which no one ever suspected. She dared not put her position to the test by quarrelling with the widow. Already she saw herself flitting in and out among the revellers, unheeded, like a disembodied spirit. Where she sat she had at least a companion, and was safe from pity. She choked back her anger as a luxury she could not afford, and was ready to respond when Mrs Denwiddie, warned by symptoms that she might be left solitary in the crowd, realised that she must have been disagreeable, and set herself to open a new conversation in a less personal strain.
How many of us would dispense with our dear friends, if we were only sure we could get on without them!