"Do not say that, dear;--or rather do say it, for we have, both of us, brought ourselves to what you call a pa.s.s,--to such a pa.s.s that we are like to be able to live together and discuss it for the rest of our lives. The difference is, I take it, that you have not to accuse yourself, and that I have."

"I cannot say that I have not to accuse myself," said Lady Laura.

"I do not know that I have done much wrong to Mr. Kennedy since I married him; but in marrying him I did him a grievous wrong."

"And he has avenged himself."

"We will not talk of vengeance. I believe he is wretched, and I know that I am;--and that has come of the wrong that I have done."

"I will make no man wretched," said Violet.

"Do you mean that your mind is made up against Oswald?"

"I mean that, and I mean much more. I say that I will make no man wretched. Your brother is not the only man who is so weak as to be willing to run the hazard."

"There is Lord Fawn."

"Yes, there is Lord Fawn, certainly. Perhaps I should not do him much harm; but then I should do him no good."

"And poor Phineas Finn."

"Yes;--there is Mr. Finn. I will tell you something, Laura. The only man I ever saw in the world whom I have thought for a moment that it was possible that I should like,--like enough to love as my husband,--except your brother, was Mr. Finn."

"And now?"

"Oh;--now; of course that is over," said Violet.

"It is over?"

"Quite over. Is he not going to marry Madame Goesler? I suppose all that is fixed by this time. I hope she will be good to him, and gracious, and let him have his own way, and give him his tea comfortably when he comes up tired from the House; for I confess that my heart is a little tender towards Phineas still. I should not like to think that he had fallen into the hands of a female Philistine."

"I do not think he will marry Madame Goesler."

"Why not?"

"I can hardly tell you;--but I do not think he will. And you loved him once,--eh, Violet?"

"Not quite that, my dear. It has been difficult with me to love. The difficulty with most girls, I fancy, is not to love. Mr. Finn, when I came to measure him in my mind, was not small, but he was never quite tall enough. One feels oneself to be a sort of recruiting sergeant, going about with a standard of inches. Mr. Finn was just half an inch too short. He lacks something in individuality. He is a little too much a friend to everybody."

"Shall I tell you a secret, Violet?"

"If you please, dear; though I fancy it is one I know already."

"He is the only man whom I ever loved," said Lady Laura.

"But it was too late when you learned to love him," said Violet.

"It was too late, when I was so sure of it as to wish that I had never seen Mr. Kennedy. I felt it coming on me, and I argued with myself that such a marriage would be bad for us both. At that moment there was trouble in the family, and I had not a shilling of my own."

"You had paid it for Oswald."

"At any rate, I had nothing;--and he had nothing. How could I have dared to think even of such a marriage?"

"Did he think of it, Laura?"

"I suppose he did."

"You know he did. Did you not tell me before?"

"Well;--yes. He thought of it. I had come to some foolish, half-sentimental resolution as to friendship, believing that he and I could be knit together by some adhesion of fraternal affection that should be void of offence to my husband; and in furtherance of this he was asked to Loughlinter when I went there, just after I had accepted Robert. He came down, and I measured him too, as you have done. I measured him, and I found that he wanted nothing to come up to the height required by my standard. I think I knew him better than you did."

"Very possibly;--but why measure him at all, when such measurement was useless?"

"Can one help such things? He came to me one day as I was sitting up by the Linter. You remember the place, where it makes its first leap."

"I remember it very well."

"So do I. Robert had shown it me as the fairest spot in all Scotland."

"And there this lover of ours sang his song to you?"

"I do not know what he told me then; but I know that I told him that I was engaged; and I felt when I told him so that my engagement was a sorrow to me. And it has been a sorrow from that day to this."

"And the hero, Phineas,--he is still dear to you?"

"Dear to me?"

"Yes. You would have hated me, had he become my husband? And you will hate Madame Goesler when she becomes his wife?"

"Not in the least. I am no dog in the manger. I have even gone so far as almost to wish, at certain moments, that you should accept him."

"And why?"

"Because he has wished it so heartily."

"One can hardly forgive a man for such speedy changes," said Violet.

"Was I not to forgive him;--I, who had turned myself away from him with a fixed purpose the moment that I found that he had made a mark upon my heart? I could not wipe off the mark, and yet I married. Was he not to try to wipe off his mark?"

"It seems that he wiped it off very quickly;--and since that he has wiped off another mark. One doesn't know how many marks he has wiped off. They are like the inn-keeper's score which he makes in chalk. A damp cloth brings them all away, and leaves nothing behind."

"What would you have?"

"There should be a little notch on the stick,--to remember by," said Violet. "Not that I complain, you know. I cannot complain, as I was not notched myself."

"You are silly, Violet."

"In not having allowed myself to be notched by this great champion?"