n my soul, but we're not in the desert, we're in
a crowd, and you, poor darling! are perched high up. You are a big
person here in this little place; down to the very school-children,
everyone notices, everyone copies, everyone takes you as an example of
what should be. And they have to keep the laws themselves, poor souls!
whether they like them or not... How do you think it would look to them
if you, who have so much, threw over your duties, just to please
yourself?"

Cassandra shook her head with a dreary indifference.

"But I don't care, you see; I don't care. Nothing matters to me at this
moment but just our two selves! It's so easy for you to talk, Grizel.
You are more than happy; you are content! I've never been content in
all my life. I've been starved of all that really matters in a woman's
life, and now, when I am offered a full meal, I must give it up and be
hungrier than before! I am going to do what is right, for there is
something in me which is stronger than passion, an inheritance, I
suppose, from generations of stiff old Protestant ancestors,--but the
doing of it will break my heart. According to the old ideas it should
make me happy. Oh, Grizel, Grizel, it isn't true! How can I be happy
if I give up Dane?"

Grizel shook her head.

"You can't. Not for a long, long time. You'll be miserable... There's
only one thing, darling!"

"Yes?"

"It would be worse if you didn't! You may be unhappy as Bernard's wife,
but you would be a hundred times more miserable as--Dane's mistress!"

Cassandra flushed hotly.

"He would marry me!"

"I'm sure of it. If he could. But--"

"Well, well! why discuss it; it is not going to happen. I'm going to
live on at the Court, and set an example to the school-children, and
keep Bernard's accounts... and grow old, and die, and be buried. That
is all I have to look forward to, and you have this to remember, Grizel
Beverley, that it was _you_ interrupted the one hour of perfect
happiness that I have ever known!"

"I'll stay away on Wednesday," Grizel said meekly, and they laughed
together in feeble, halfhearted fashion. "But I'll come up later, and
say everything all over again," she continued presently, "and I'll go
_on_ saying it, as often as you need it, and do my penance that way...
Take long views, Cassandra, darling, take long views! One isn't always
young and ardent; it's only for a little spell, after all, and all the
long, long time stretch