Mrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. "I ought not to allow
myself to argue with you," she exclaimed. "I demean myself by doing
it. But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time I try to tell
you how mistaken you are!" Much of her confusion resulted from her
wonder and alarm at finding herself in a sense dominated mentally and
emotionally by this simple school-girl. "I do not love him," she went
on, with desperate untruth. "It was a kindness--my making somewhat
more of him than one usually does of one's doctor. I was lonely; I
talked--well, I trifled with him. I am very sorry if such child's
playing out of pure friendship has been a serious matter to you. Who
could have expected it? But the world is so simple here."
"Oh, that's affectation," said Grace, shaking her head. "It is no
use--you love him. I can see in your face that in this matter of my
husband you have not let your acts belie your feelings. During these
last four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet; but you have
not been insincere, and that almost disarms me."
"I HAVE been insincere--if you will have the word--I mean I HAVE
coquetted, and do NOT love him!"
But Grace clung to her position like a limpet. "You may have trifled
with others, but him you love as you never loved another man."
"Oh, well--I won't argue," said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly. "And
you come to reproach me for it, child."
"No," said Grace, magnanimously. "You may go on loving him if you
like--I don't mind at all. You'll find it, let me tell you, a bitterer
business for yourself than for me in the end. He'll get tired of you
soon, as tired as can be--you don't know him so well as I--and then you
may wish you had never seen him!"
Mrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It was
extraordinary that Grace, whom almost every one would have
characterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than her
interlocutor. "You exaggerate--cruel, silly young woman," she
reiterated, writhing with little agonies. "It is nothing but playful
friendship--nothing! It will be proved by my future conduct. I shall
at once refuse to see him more--since it will make no difference to my
heart, and much to my name."
"I question if you will refuse to see him again," said Grace, dryly, as
with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensed
against you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree to
its natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you for
wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When
Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable
hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles
across the country at midnight, and risking his life, and getting
covered with mud, to get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish
man--the plaything of a finished coquette. I thought that what was
getting to be a tragedy to me was a comedy to you. But now I see that
tragedy lies on YOUR side of the situation no less than on MINE, and
more; that if I have felt trouble at my position, you have felt anguish
at yours; that if I have had disappointments, you have had despairs.
Heaven may fortify me--God help you!"