which would or might have been a satiric one, but that it was checked and counteracted by others.
Did Hal really, could he really imagine that it would be a pleasure to her to hear this wonderful piece of news of his? Did he suppose that the mere proverbial feminine delight in a marriage would outweigh the serious, the inevitable sorrow which such a marriage would entail upon herself – the dead blank face which the future must henceforth wear to her? or had the mere fact of his own satisfaction blinded him to the very possibility of any one else regarding the matter from any other point of view?
If there was one human being in the whole world who knew her well, knew her to the bottom of her heart, she would have said it was her brother Hal. Oddly enough she had much more confidence in his knowing her than in she herself knowing him. This was not in the least that she had any doubt at all as to their relative standing, morally and intellectually. She never even dreamt of saying to herself that he was her superior. It would not have been true, and she liked the truth. She was the stronger, the clearer, the harder- willed, the broader-hearted, the larger-headed. Of this there was no question – never had been any. She was his superior in all or almost all that most becomes a man, just as surely and as certainly as he was her superior in almost all that most becomes a woman. Yet none the less she had more confidence in his knowing her than in her knowing him, really, thoroughly to the bottom of the last tissue. It was hardly conceivable that she could have any surprises for Hal; whereas it was quite conceivable to her that he might yet have a good
many surprises in store for her. Had he not, in fact, considerably astonished her within the last few weeks'? Why, if he had made up his mind to marry, should he not have told her so? Why should he not have taken her into his confidence and appealed to her sympathy? Had he ever known it to fail him, to refuse to answer to the call? Surely she might honestly lay her hand upon her heart and answer Never. Whether she did or did not think this magnificent Russian – spoilt, vain, surfeited with admiration – exactly the wife of all others to make him happy – he who had also always been more or less spoilt himself – that was a detail, a matter for after consideration; of her full, free, perfect sympathy in whatever concerned or interested him, he ought not, surely, to have had a moment's doubt. If he had, then her whole life must have been a series of self-deception and delusion: perhaps – who knows? – it was, she said to herself.
Poor woman, she was morbid – she told herself so. She also, she admitted to herself, had been spoilt, if not in one way, at least in another. Her father had spoilt her – set her upon a false pedestal, one on which it was not natural, not reasonable, to expect that she should remain. An ugly, ill-mannered, not even particularly amiable woman! She ought to know her place better – she ought to know how little importance she could by any possibility be to any one! False positions were always cruel ones, and they that had loved her most had therefore, in the end, been the most cruel to her. Well, there was at least no fear that her new sister-in-law, if she ever did become her sister-in-law, would ever be cruel in this respect! She would have no illu-
