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 CHAPTER XLVI

THE MUSIC MUTE

When Cerise found herself alone, she naturally read her mother's letter once again, and made a variety of resolutions for her future conduct which she could not but acknowledge were derogatory to her own dignity the while. It was her duty, she told herself, to yield to her husband's prejudices, however unreasonable; to give way to him in this, as in every other difference of married life—for she felt it was a difference, though expressed only by a turn of his eyebrow, a contraction of his lip—and to trample her own pride under foot when he required it, however humiliating and disagreeable it might be to herself. If George was so absurd as to think she showed an over-anxiety for the safety of their guest, why, she must bear with his folly because he was her husband, and school her manner to please him, as she schooled her thoughts. After all, was she not interested in Florian only as his friend? What was it, what could it be to her, if the priest were carried off to York gaol, or the Tower of London, to-morrow? Lady Hamilton passed very rapidly over this extreme speculation, and perhaps she was right; though it is easy to convince yourself by argument that you are uninterested in any one, the actual process of your thoughts is apt to create something very like a special interest which increases in proportion to the multitude of reasons adduced against its possibility, and that which was but a phantom when you sat down to consider it has grown into a solid and tangible substance when you get up. Lady Hamilton, therefore, was discreet in reverting chiefly to what her husband