There had come a romance which had been
pleasant, and it was gone. It had been soon banished,--but it
had left to her a sweet flavour, of which she loved to taste the
sweetness though she knew that it was gone. And the man should be her
friend, but especially her husband's friend. It should be her care to
see that his life was successful,--and especially her husband's care.
It was a great delight to her to know that her husband liked the man.
And the man would marry, and the man's wife should be her friend. All
this had been very pure and very pleasant. Now an idea had flitted
across her brain that the man was in love with some one else,--and
she did not like it!
But she did not therefore become afraid of herself, or in the least
realise at once the danger of her own position. Her immediate glance
at the matter did not go beyond the falseness of men. If it were so,
as she suspected,--if Phineas had in truth transferred his affections
to Violet Effingham, of how little value was the love of such a man!
It did not occur to her at this moment that she also had transferred
hers to Robert Kennedy, or that, if not, she had done worse. But she
did remember that in the autumn this young Phoebus among men had
turned his back upon her out upon the mountain that he might hide
from her the agony of his heart when he learned that she was to be
the wife of another man; and that now, before the winter was over, he
could not hide from her the fact that his heart was elsewhere! And
then she speculated, and counted up facts, and satisfied herself that
Phineas could not even have seen Violet Effingham since they two had
stood together upon the mountain.
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