He had spent all his life
on the Sales estate, and she wondered whether, though, like herself,
of a limited outward experience, he also had known the passions of
love and disgust and shame. He was sixty-five, he told her, but as
strong as ever, and she envied him: to be sixty-five with the turmoil
of life behind him, yet to be strong enough to enjoy the peace before
him, was a good finale to existence. She was only thirty-one, but she
was strong too, and she felt as though she had come through a storm,
battered and exhausted but whole and ready for the calm which already
hovered over her. She said, 'The young are always sorry for the old,
but that is one of the many mistakes they make. I think it must be the
best time of all.'
'If you have them that cares for you,' he answered.
That was where her own happiness would break down.
There were her stepsisters, who would probably die before herself;
there was Henrietta, who would form ties of her own; and there was no
one else. If she had had less faith in Francis Sales's love and, at
the same time, had been capable of pandering to it, she might have had
his devotion for her old age, the devotion of a somewhat querulous and
dull old man. Now she had not even that to hope for, and she was glad.
She had always wanted the best of everything, and always, except in
the one fatal instance, refused what fell below her standard. She had
not realized until now that Francis Sales had always been below it.
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