ease, dearest!"

She turned her head, and their lips met under cover of the pansy-coloured
darkness.... Then he was gone with Lady Hannah, and Lynette was walking
home to the Convent bombproof, explaining to the astonished Sisters that
the Mother knew; that the Mother approved of her engagement to Lord
Beauvayse; and that they would probably be married very soon. Before the
Relief ...

"'Before the Relief.' Well, no one but Our Lord knows when that's to
be.... And so you're very happy, are you, dearie?"

Even as she gave her shy assent in answer to Sister Tobias's question, its
commonplace homeliness, like the feeling of the thick dust and the
scattered debris underfoot, brought back Lynette for a moment out of the
golden, diamond-dusted, pearl-gemmed dream-world in which she had been
straying, to wonder, Was she really very happy?

She asked herself the question sitting with the Sisters at their little
scanty supper. She asked herself as she knelt with them in prayer, as she
lay in bed, the Mother's place vacant beside her--Was she happy after all?

She had drunk sweetness, but there had been a tang of something in the cup
that cloyed the palate and sickened the soul. She had learned the love of
man, and in a measure it had cast out fear, that had been her earlier
lesson.

To be held and taken and made his completely, what must it be like? She
glowed in the darkness at the thought. And then the recollection of a
ruthless strength that had rent away the veil of innocence from a
woman-child surged back upon her.

Just think. Suppose you laid your hand in the warm, strong clasp that
thrilled delight to every nerve, and set your heart beating, beating, and,
drawn by the shining grey-green jewel-eyes and the mysterious, wooing
smile upon the beautiful lips, and the coaxing, caressing tones of the
voice that so allured, you gave up all else that had been so dear, and
went away with him? What then? Suppose----

Suppose the smiling face of Love should turn out to be nothing but a mask
hiding the gross and brutal leer of Lust, what then? She saw that other
man's dreadful face, painted in hot and living colours upon the darkness.
She writhed as if to tear her lips from the savage, furious mouth. She
shuddered and grew cold there in the sultry heat. The clasp of the
protecting mother-arms might have driven away her terror, but she was
alone. It would have been sweet to be alone that night if she had been
happy.