She passed her
days in the order and elegance of Nelson Lodge, in a monotonous
satisfaction of the eye, listening to the familiar chatter of Caroline
and Sophia, dressing herself with tireless care and refusing to regret
her past. Nevertheless, it had been wasted, and the only occupation of
her present was her anxiety for Francis Sales. She could not rid
herself of that claim, begun so long ago. She had to accept the
inactive responsibility which in another would have resolved itself
into earnest prayer but which in her was a stoical endurance of
possibilities.
What was he doing? What would he do? She knew he could not stand
alone, she knew she must continue to hold herself ready for his
service, but a prisoner fastened to a chain does not find much solace
in counting the links, and that was all she had to do. It seemed to
her that she moved, rather like a ghost, up and down the stairs, about
the landing, in the delicate silence of her bedroom; that she sat
ghost-like at the dining-table and heard the strangely aimless talk of
human beings. She supposed there were countless women like herself,
unoccupied and lonely, yet her pride resented the idea. There was only
one Rose Mallett; there was no one else with just her past, with the
same mental pictures and her peculiar isolation, and if she had been a
vainer woman she would have added that no other woman offered the same
kind of beauty to a world in need of it.
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