Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/103

 had bargained for this—now she must stand by her bargain.

Miss Louisa, at home in the dingy vicarage, had suffered a great deal over her sister’s wedding. Having once begun to cry out against it, during the engagement, she had been silenced by Mary’s quiet: “I don’t agree with you about him, Louisa, I want to marry him.” Then Miss Louisa had been angry deep in her heart, and therefore silent. This dangerous state started the change in her. Her own revulsion made her recoil from the hitherto undoubted Mary.

“I’d beg the streets barefoot first,” said Miss Louisa, thinking of Mr. Massy.

But evidently Mary could perform a different heroism. So she, Louisa the practical, suddenly felt that Mary, her ideal, was questionable after all. How could she be pure—one cannot be dirty in act and spiritual in being. Louisa distrusted Mary’s high spirituality. It was no longer genuine for her. And if Mary were spiritual and misguided, why did not her father protect her? Because of the money. He disliked the whole affair, but he backed away, because of the money. And the mother frankly did not care: her daughters could do as they liked. Her mother’s pronouncement:

“Whatever happens to him, Mary is safe for life,”—so evidently and shallowly a calculation, incensed Louisa.

“I’d rather be safe in the workhouse,” she cried.