“Of course it is. And if this girl was worthy of Dan Mavering, if she were capable of loving him or anybody else unselfishly, she would have felt his truth even if she couldn't have seen it. I believe this minute that that manoeuvring, humbugging mother of hers is a better woman, a kinder woman, than she is.”
“Alice says her mother took his part,” said Miss Cotton, with a sigh. “She took your view of it.”
“She's a sensible woman. But I hope she won't be able to get him into her toils again,” continued Mrs. Brinkley, recurring to the conventional estimate of Mrs. Pasmer.
“I can't help feeling—believing—that they'll come together somehow still,” murmured Miss Cotton. It seemed to her that she had all along wished this; and she tried to remember if what she had said to comfort Alice might be construed as adverse to a reconciliation.
“I hope they won't, then,” said Mrs. Brinkley, “for they couldn't help being unhappy together, with their temperaments. There's one thing, Miss Cotton, that's more essential in marriage than Miss Pasmer's instantaneous honesty, and that's patience.”
“Patience with wrong?” demanded Miss Cotton.
“Yes, even with wrong; but I meant patience with each other. Marriage is a perpetual pardon, concession, surrender; it's an everlasting giving up; that's the divine thing about it; and that's just what Miss Passer could never conceive of, because she is self-righteous and conceited and unyielding. She would make him miserable.”
Miss Cotton rose in a bewilderment which did not permit her to go at once. There was something in her mind which she wished to urge, but she could not make it out, though she fingered in vague generalities. When she got a block away from the house it suddenly came to her. Love! If they loved each other, would not all be well with them? She would have liked to run back and put that question to Mrs. Brinkley; but just then she met Brinkley lumbering heavily homeward; she heard his hard breathing from the exertion of bowing to her as he passed.
His wife met him in the hall, and went up to kiss him. He smelt abominably of tobacco smoke.
“Hullo!” said her husband. “What are you after?”