Part 32 (1/2)
Grizel sat looking at her, pondering what to say.
”When you first knew Ca.s.sandra you were fascinated by her. You felt a longing to see her again. Every time you saw her, you admired her more.
You have told me about it, so often. In a feminine way you fell in love with her yourself, Teresa. You _ought_ to understand.”
”He was engaged to me!” echoed Teresa obstinately. Suddenly her face quivered with pathos ”And--I'm young--I'm pretty.--I loved him. _Why_?
Why? Why?”
”Oh, my poor child!” Grizel cried sharply, and the tears started to her eyes. Poor, ignorant, complaisant Teresa fighting against the mysteries of life, demanding explanation of the inexplicable,--what tenderness, what forgiveness was to be expected from such an att.i.tude?
”He chose me,” she insisted. ”It was his own doing. n.o.body made him.
It was his own choice. And he had met her _before_ he asked me. We used to talk about her together.--I was glad when he was enthusiastic...
She was my friend, and a married woman with a husband and--that big boy! He is ten years old. She must be thirty at the least.” All the arrogance of the early twenties rang in Teresa's voice. ”It's such folly--such madness! It isn't as if she could ever--love him back.”
Silence. Teresa looked up sharply, held Grizel's eyes in a hard, enquiring stare and deliberately repeated the p.r.o.nouncement.
”It isn't possible that she could care for him.”
”Did you find it so difficult, Teresa?”
”Why do you compare her with me? It's different. You know it's different.”
”Yes, I do know. You were a free, happy girl with your life ahead.
_Her_ youth, the best part of her youth has gone, and she has never had the joy that every woman needs. You know what I mean. We need not go into it. Some men mean well, but they have no right to be husbands!
The women who have to live with them are slowly starved to death.”
”She has her boy.”
”Yes, she has her boy. For a few weeks in the year.”
”He is her son all the year round.”
”That's perfectly true, Teresa.”
”A married woman with a son ought _not_ to love another man.”
”That's perfectly true, Teresa. Do you never by any chance do anything you should not? Can't you find the least sc.r.a.p of pity in your heart for other people who are more unhappy than yourself?”
”I am not sorry for people who do wrong. It's easy to talk, Mrs Beverley. Suppose it was your own husband, and you had seen him, as I did to-day, with another woman--with Ca.s.sandra herself. How would _you_ feel?”
Grizel's grimace was more expressive than words.
”My dear, I can't imagine it. I'd rather not. I should certainly not be calm. I'm an impetuous person who is bound to let off steam, and there would be a considerable amount of steam on that occasion, but I'm older than you, and have seen more of the world, so that perhaps it would come easier--after the first explosion--to be sorry for them as well as myself.”
”Why should one be sorry?”
”Because they _are_ in the wrong, and are bringing sorrow on others, whereas you are the injured martyr, who is sinned against. There's considerable balm in the position--for those who like it. How do you suppose poor Dane will feel at the prospect of his next interview with you?”