“But I’m going to, because I’ve had you all to myself the whole morning. Now it’s Madre’s turn. Isn’t it, Madre?”
The girl’s remark showed her sense of their complete triple intimacy, but it emphasized to Hermione her own cruel sense of being in the wilderness. And she even felt vexed that it should be supposed she wanted Emile’s company. Nevertheless, she restrained herself from making any disclaimer. Vere went up-stairs, and she and Artois went out and sat down under the trellis. But with the removal of Vere a protection and safety-valve seemed to be removed, and neither Hermione nor Emile could for a moment continue the conversation. Again a sense of humiliation, of being mindless, nothing in the eyes of Artois came to Hermione, diminishing all her powers. She was never a conceited, but she had often been a self-reliant woman. Now she felt a humbleness such as she knew no one should ever feel—a humbleness that was contemptible, that felt itself incapable, unworthy of notice. She tried to resist it, but when she thought of this man, her friend, talking over her failure with her child, in whom he must surely believe, she could not. She felt “Vere can talk to Emile better than I can. She interests him more than I.” And then her years seemed to gather round her and whip her. She shrank beneath the thongs of age, which had not even brought to her those gifts of the mind with which it often partially replaces the bodily gifts and graces it is so eager to remove.
“Hermione.”
“Yes, Emile.”
She turned slowly in her chair, forcing herself to face him.
“Are you sure you are not feeling ill?”
“Quite sure. Did you have a pleasant morning with Vere?”
“Yes. Oh”—he sat forward in his chair—“she told me something that rather surprised me—that you had told her she might read my books.”
“Well?”
Hermione’s voice was rather hard.