“I am sure there is nothing in Vere’s life that might not be told to the whole world without shame; and yet there may be many things that an innocent girl would not care to tell to any one.”
“But if things are told they should be told to the mother. The mother comes first.”
He said nothing.
“The mother comes first!” she repeated, almost fiercely. “And you ought to know it. You do know it!”
“You do come first with Vere.”
“If I did, Vere would confide in me rather than in any one else.”
As Hermione said this, all the long-contained bitterness caused by Vere’s exclusion of her from the knowledge that had been freely given to Artois brimmed up suddenly in her heart, overflowed boundaries, seemed to inundate her whole being.
“I do not come first,” she said.
Her voice trembled, almost broke.
“You know that I do not come first. You have just told me a lie.”