"Give me a few hours first, mamma," she begged. "Don't let him
come to me just yet. For all your hardness, you feel a little for
me--don't you?"
"Duty is always hard, my child," said Lady Margaret. She entirely
believed it, and looked on herself as a martyr, a pattern of
self-devotion and womanly virtue. But, had she been certain of
escaping discovery, she would have slipped the koh-i-noor into
her belt-pouch, notwithstanding. Never once in her life had she
done or abstained from doing a thing _because that thing was
right or was wrong. Such a person, be she as old and as hard as
the hills, is mere putty in the fingers of Beelzebub. Hesper rose
and went to her own room. There, for a long hour, she sat--with
the skin of her fair face drawn tight over muscles rigid as
marble--sat without moving, almost without thinking--in a mere
hell of disgusted anticipation. She neither stormed nor wept; her
life went smoldering on; she nerved herself to a brave endurance,
instead of a far braver resistance.
I fancy Hesper would have been a little shocked if one had called
her an atheist. She went to church most Sundays--when in the
country; for, in the opinion of Lady Margaret, it was not
decorous _there_ to omit the ceremony: where you have
influence you ought to set a good example--of hypocrisy, namely!
But, if any one had suggested to Hesper a certain old-fashioned
use of her chamber-door, she would have inwardly laughed at the
absurdity.
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