The smile faded. "Aunt Selina might lie dead at my feet, for all I should care," she answered with another sudden burst of passion. "Oh, no, not quite that. I suppose I like her as well as I can like any one. But that's the way it is, comparatively."
"Yes. I know that feeling," said James meditatively.
"So you see how it is with me. I'm glad, in a way, that it's all up now. Any end—even the worst—is better than waiting—that hopeless, desperate waiting. Yet I never could bring myself to give up till I heard—what I heard yesterday. I've expected it, really, for some time; I've watched, I've seen. Oh, that horrible watching—waiting—listening! That's all over, at least...."
She had sunk into a chair near the edge of the verandah and sat with her elbows on the broad rail, gazing with sightless eyes over the variegated expanse of the sea. The midday sun fell full upon her unprotected face and even James at that moment could not help thinking how few complexions could bear that fierce light as hers did. She was, indeed, perhaps more beautiful at that moment than he had ever seen her before. Her expression of quiet hopeless grief was admirably suited to the high-bred cast of her features; she would have made a beautiful model for a Zenobia or a classisized type of pietà. Beauty is never more willing to come to us than when we want it least.
It had its effect on James, though he did not realize it. He came over and sat down on the rail, where he could look directly down at her.
"Beatrice," he said, "I don't mind saying I think it was rather magnificent of you."
She looked up at him a moment and then out to sea again. "Well, I must say I don't. I'm not proud of it. If I had been man enough to go my own way and not let it interfere with my life in the very least, that might have been magnificent. But this.... It was simply weak. I always knew there was no hope, you know."
"No, that's not the way to look at it. You devoted your whole life to that single purpose.... After all, you did as much as it was possible to do, you know. You went about it in the very best way—you were right when you said the worst thing you could do was to let him see."
"I'm not so sure. No, I don't know about that. Sometimes I think that if I had been brave enough simply to go to him and say, 'I love you; here I am, take me; I'll devote my life to making a good wife for you,' it would have been much better. But I wasn't brave enough for that."
"No," insisted James; "that wasn't why you didn't do it. You knew Harry. It might have worked with some men, but not with him. Can't you see him screwing himself to be polite and saying, 'Thank you very much, Beatrice, but I don't think I could make you a good enough husband, so I'm afraid it won't do'?... No, you picked out the best way to get at him and made that your one purpose in life, and I admire you for it. It wasn't your fault it didn't succeed; it was just—just the damned, relentless way of things...."